DragonFly mirrors & ISO distribution

[albryan at comcast.net]

Hi,

I've put up a metalink for DragonFly BSD at
http://www.metalinker.org/samples/dfly-1.8.0_REL.iso.gz.metalink

(One for 1.6 has been available for months).

Metalinks are useful for large files like ISOs and contain mirror and p2p
locations along with checksums and other metadata. It can distribute load between mirrors and other useful features which are helpful at release time. It's an XML file and here's a good description:

'Metalink makes complex download pages obsolete by replacing long lists of
download mirrors and BitTorrent trackers with a single .metalink file. As
you might have already guessed, a .metalink file is a file that tells a
download manager all the different ways it can download a file. The file
itself takes the form of an open XML standard that can list an unlimited
number of HTTP and FTP sources as well as BitTorrent trackers and ed2k and
magnet links.'
(http://www.downloadsquad.com/2006/08/28/metalinks-integrated-bittorrent-htt
p-and-ftp-downloads/)

Metalinks are supported by a number of download managers on Unix, Mac, and Win. There are 2 for unix, a command line version
(http://aria2.sourceforge.net/) and one with a GUI. If you use the latest version of aria2, each chunk downloaded will be verified, which means that if there is an error in transfer, it will be corrected automatically.

Other places that use them...

http://distribution.openoffice.org/p2p/magnet.html
http://en.opensuse.org/Released_Version#Metalink
http://www.archlinux.org/download/

If you have any questions, please contact me.

(( Anthony Bryan
 )) Metalink [ http://www.metalinker.org ]