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FOSDEM
Extremely simple file loadbalancing with statistics
With FOSDEM we have around 70GB of recorded lectures. While this is a good thing for developers that weren't able to come, it can be annoying for the organizers as they have to make these files available.
There are currently two ways to access the video's. Using the FOSDEMTALKS YouTube channel or via video.fosdem.org (http download).
Serving all the files only ourselves would add useless load on our server and internet uplink. That's where Belnet, HEAnet, Unixheads and dotsrc.org; the mirrors play a role. The annoying thing with redirecting everything (include directory listings) to mirrors is that you don't have download-statistics. This is where the following principle is a quick-win:
- Make sure all directory listing stays on our server
- When a file is accessed, redirect to a mirror
The implementation is fairly simple, only two files are required: loadbalancing.php for the redirection and an .htaccess file for sending file-paths to the loadbalancing script.
The .htaccess file looks like
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ loadbalancing.php?f=$1 [L,QSA]The first line tells Apache to only perform the rewrite if the request is !-d, not a directory. The second line sends the url to the php-script
And the loadbalancing.php file:
<?php
# A trailing "/" should NOT be present in the list of mirrors
$mirrors= Array(
'http://ftp.belnet.be/mirrors/FOSDEM'
,'http://ftp.heanet.ie/mirrors/fosdem-video'
,'http://fosdem.unixheads.org'
,'http://mirrors.dotsrc.org/fosdem'
);
$file=$mirrors[array_rand($mirrors)].$_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'];
header('Location: '.$file);
?>
<html><body>
If your browser doesn't redirect you should download the file manually using:
<a href="<?php echo $file; ?>"><?php echo $file; ?></a>
This script just takes a random element out of the array and sends an 302 to redirect the browser to the selected mirror. As every request, except the real download, is now done on our webserver we will be able to get full statistics of downloaded files while letting users use the directory listing feature of Apache. Statistics can be done with your favorite Apache-statistics tool.
Next story: adding geolocation to make the loadbalancing more efficient.
FOSDEM Speaker interviews
Did you notice speakers get interviewed before FOSDEM?
Check out these interviews:
- Rob Savoye (Gnash)
- Martin Odersky (Scala)
- Pieter Hintjens (OpenAMQ)
- Victor Stinner (Fusil)
- Simo Sorce (FreeIPA v2)
- Max Spevack (Fedora Project)
More will probably come later...
FOSDEM 2009 approaching
FOSDEM 2009 is approaching very fast. The dates are set on the 7th - 8th February 2009 with on the 6th the usual beer event.
It's time to start again with the
My ideas about FOSDEM
A week after FOSDEM 2008 I have read many blogposts and the comments on the feedback form. It's really interesting to see what people think about the event; and this edition specifically.
Next saturday the staff will have the post-FOSDEM aka post mortem meeting.
We'll spend some time together and look back what went good and what went less good. We'll also look forward to the next edition(s) on how concretely solving those issues.
This meeting also means the official closing of FOSDEM 2008 for us. Or in normal language: "full rest".
I do have a few things I'm planning to work personally on:
- Main track speakers
- Location
- Internal coordination and communication
- Network
- FOSDEM 2010 - 10th Bday
Main track speakers
Finding the right speakers for the main tracks is not easy. First of all they must be technical, but not too much as they should attract a larger crowd. There is definitely some more work to be done for next year.
Internal coordination and communication
There are a few internal things that went wrong this year or could go better. I think we are certainly heading the right way with our ever growing documentation. By documenting many things organizing FOSDEM becomes easier for the boring part. This means we can spend more time on the fun part and on bigger improvements.
What I also didn't like was that the main tracks, the devrooms and the lightning talks were totally not aligned in their ending-time-schedule. I don't want to see this again next year :-)
Network
The network worked more or less fine this year. Great job Gerry & the Greenpeace guys!
But the hardware we are using as routers (Linksys WRT54GL) starts having issues with the amount of simultaneous connections it can handle. I think we need to invest into some more robust networking stuff and start using more directional antenna's for the WiFi. Do I hear money money money? :'(
Gerry, if you need some help with that don't hesitate to ping me.
10th edition of (F)OSDEM.
In two years (F)OSDEM will be at its tenth edition. In my eyes this is certainly a good reason to do something special.
I have a dream !
I have a dream on Friday evening with a lot of (almost) free beer.
I have a dream of another (almost) free beer party on Saturday
I have a dream of free food and drinks during the day.
I have a dream of free entrance for FOSDEM...hmm...this is already the case. Nothing new here.
I have a dream of many many well known speakers coming and giving lectures.
I also have a dream of those developers walking around discussing FLOSS things with the visitors.
I have a dream with many volunteers ;-)
In this beautifull dream, where sponsors give us even more money to help us pay for all these free things.
Do you think this is only a dream? Do you think this is feasible?
This is certainly not something we should prepare one year in advance, but we should start very very soon...
