Could you not use something like an HTTP redirect? It could quickly
check a list of active mirrors, generate a random index, and redirect to
that mirror?
That's still a hit on our server, and something we wanted to prevent ;)
I agree. If we really want to "load-balance" we need it to happen in front
of the server itself; either with DNS or, well, a load-balancer - I vote DNS
:)
I'm still trying to feel out the architecture and organization, both
technically and culturally, of the mirror system and website. But, I'd be
happy to head-up trying to get a few core servers lined up as a "php.net
backbone" through use of random.php.net and DNS round-robin. I don't know
how strangers are viewed as wanting to do stuff, but any type of "go ahead"
would be all I need :)
Well, having a "php.net backbone" seems to be a good idea for me to solve the accessibility problem. Those should be the "highly classed" mirrors. Whether we do this classification by hand or based on access stats (which then should be logged by our checking script) is another questions ;)
But if we have a select few mirrors, having this automatically work with the user's country will be hard. There is no data available whether a German mirror would be closer to me or a British one. Germany is closer geographically, but I may have a much better connection to Great Britain.
If we would be able to trust all mirrors then it would be much easier to make this thing "close mirror" friendly. But what if there will be no trusted mirrors in Hungary? How can some code detect which mirror has better connection the network I am connected to?
Just to make clear: trusting all mirrors is still a dream, and we should not do it ;)
Goba