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  • [gentoo-user] Why is emerge --sync downloading from random hosts?

    From Alan Mackenzie@21:1/5 to All on Tue Apr 15 21:30:01 2025
    Hello, Gentoo,

    For several weeks, now, my # emerge --sync has been downloading from one
    or other of the hosts:
    http://www.uls.co.za/ ("Ultimate Linux Solutions")
    https://reenigne.net/
    .. .za is, I believe, South Africa. That's a long way from Germany, and
    the # emerge --sync from it takes, typically, ~90 seconds. Before, my
    # emerge --sync used to take around 30 seconds. From the second host, it
    # takes ~60 seconds.

    In my /etc/portage/make.conf, I've got:

    GENTOO_MIRRORS="rsync://ftp.fau.de/gentoo rsync://ftp-stud.hs-esslingen.de/gentoo"

    .. This used to update from local hosts in Erlangen and Esslingen, two Universities ~30km and ~200km away.

    Could somebody please give me a hint as to why my GENTOO_MIRRORS setting doesn't appear to work anymore, and what exactly is selecting the distant
    and slow hosts in its place?

    Thanks!

    --
    Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Michael@21:1/5 to All on Tue Apr 15 22:23:13 2025
    On Tuesday, 15 April 2025 20:19:13 British Summer Time Alan Mackenzie wrote:
    Hello, Gentoo,

    For several weeks, now, my # emerge --sync has been downloading from one
    or other of the hosts:
    http://www.uls.co.za/ ("Ultimate Linux Solutions")
    https://reenigne.net/
    .. .za is, I believe, South Africa. That's a long way from Germany, and
    the # emerge --sync from it takes, typically, ~90 seconds. Before, my
    # emerge --sync used to take around 30 seconds. From the second host, it
    # takes ~60 seconds.

    In my /etc/portage/make.conf, I've got:

    GENTOO_MIRRORS="rsync://ftp.fau.de/gentoo rsync://ftp-stud.hs-esslingen.de/gentoo"

    .. This used to update from local hosts in Erlangen and Esslingen, two Universities ~30km and ~200km away.

    Could somebody please give me a hint as to why my GENTOO_MIRRORS setting doesn't appear to work anymore, and what exactly is selecting the distant
    and slow hosts in its place?

    Thanks!

    I've noticed the same, although my mirror URI setting is:

    sync-uri = rsync://rsync.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage

    to allow auto-selection of the next available mirror. I do occasionally sync with mirrors in Germany, but this happens rarely in the last 3-4 weeks. The
    SA mirrors are *noticeably* slower as if they are being actively throttled. I can't recall if I checked where the connection is routed through when I first noticed this new pattern. I have no idea why this started happening. :-/

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    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Mitchell Dorrell@21:1/5 to [email protected] on Tue Apr 15 23:20:01 2025
    On Tue, Apr 15, 2025 at 3:20 PM Alan Mackenzie <[email protected]> wrote:
    For several weeks, now, my # emerge --sync has been downloading from one
    or other of the hosts:
    http://www.uls.co.za/ ("Ultimate Linux Solutions")
    https://reenigne.net/
    .. .za is, I believe, South Africa. That's a long way from Germany, and
    the # emerge --sync from it takes, typically, ~90 seconds. Before, my
    # emerge --sync used to take around 30 seconds. From the second host, it
    # takes ~60 seconds.

    In my /etc/portage/make.conf, I've got:

    GENTOO_MIRRORS="rsync://ftp.fau.de/gentoo rsync://ftp-stud.hs-esslingen.de/gentoo"

    .. This used to update from local hosts in Erlangen and Esslingen, two Universities ~30km and ~200km away.

    Could somebody please give me a hint as to why my GENTOO_MIRRORS setting doesn't appear to work anymore, and what exactly is selecting the distant
    and slow hosts in its place?

    Thanks!

    --
    Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).

    Me too. I assumed I forgot to set my mirrors, but you just made me
    check:
    $ portageq envvar GENTOO_MIRRORS | xargs printf "%s\n" https://mirrors.mit.edu/gentoo-distfiles/ rsync://mirrors.mit.edu/gentoo-distfiles/
    https://gentoo.osuosl.org/
    https://mirrors.rit.edu/gentoo/
    ftp://mirrors.rit.edu/gentoo/
    rsync://mirrors.rit.edu/gentoo/
    https://mirror.servaxnet.com/gentoo/
    http://gentoo-mirror.flux.utah.edu/

    However, also:
    $ sed -En 's_.*://([^/]*).*_\1_p' /var/log/emerge.log | sort -u |
    while read i; do echo $i = $(dig +short -x ${i}); done
    137.226.34.46 = ftp.halifax.rwth-aachen.de.
    154.73.32.1 = kerberos.iewc.co.za.
    154.73.32.2 = cerberus.iewc.co.za.
    172.83.105.10 = mirror.reenigne.net.
    81.91.253.252 =
    89.238.71.6 = turnstone.gentoo.org.

    And for good measure:
    $ portageq envvar GENTOO_MIRRORS | xargs printf "%s\n" | cut -d/ -f3 |
    sort -u | while read i; do echo $i = $(dig +short ${i}); done
    gentoo-mirror.flux.utah.edu = 155.98.60.65
    gentoo.osuosl.org = ftp.osuosl.org. 140.211.166.134 64.50.236.52 64.50.233.100 mirror.servaxnet.com = 162.255.226.75
    mirrors.mit.edu = 18.7.29.125
    mirrors.rit.edu = zuul.rc.rit.edu. 129.21.171.72

    No matches there. This host never honored GENTOO_MIRRORS, maybe because:
    $ grep uri /etc/portage/repos.conf/gentoo.conf
    sync-uri = rsync://rsync.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage

    The handbook still recommends setting it, though: https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Handbook:AMD64/Installation/Base#Optional:_Selecting_mirrors
    Portage will look in the make.conf file for the GENTOO_MIRRORS
    variable and use the mirrors listed therein.
    ...
    mirrorselect -i -o >> /etc/portage/make.conf

    I did notice this in the help text and man page for mirrorselect:
    For the -r, --rsync option, it will select the rotation server only.
    As multiple rsync URL's are not supported.

    It sounds like (a), we shouldn't be trying to set multiple rsync hosts,
    and (b) we should be setting it in repos.conf instead of in make.conf.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)