FAQ

The issues listed in this file should be moved into the main documentation.
http://mirrorbrain.org/faq/ has answers to some more general questions.




Q: How often does the scan take place? What I am wondering is; if I chose to
   delete something, how long before the distribution server sees it? I
   would not want anyone to get an error when they try to download
   something.

A: Good question. For now, the "best" is to send a note that one is going to
   delete something... the  master site can then disable redirection to the 
   mirror, and re-enable it after a scan once they are done...

   A brute-force approach would be to make the server return a 404, or take it 
   offline for some minutes, because every (e.g.) 5 minutes the redirector 
   checks with a request to '/' that the host is alive,  and disables
   redirection if that returns an error. 
   Yes, too ugly.

   The plan is, to provide admin access to the redirector database, so 
   mirrors could
    * disable redirection themselves,
    * trigger a scan, and re-enable it
    * maybe even mark parts of the tree as deleted in the database, so 
      they can safely delete them without further action required.

   This could possibly solved to a satisfactory degree by more frequent 
   scanning, of random files, basically simulating a (very light) workload.



Q: What does "zrkadlo" mean?
A: mod_zrkadlo was the previous name of mod_mirrorbrain. "zrkadlo" is a word
   found when travelling in Slovakia in 2006. 'zrkadlo' is Slovakian for 'mirror',
   and comprises about 33% of my Slovakian vocabulary :)

   Here is a nice illustration: http://sk.wikiquote.org/wiki/Zrkadlo