On 19 Aug 2006 05:51:29 -0700, Jay Honeck wrote:

(mirroring content on webservers)

So, if I'm reading this right, the mirror is basically another server.
From what you say, I gather that it would require uploading to both
servers each time I updated the page?

you can do it that way, yes.
you can also distribute the content around the globe and let a script
either decide which server to use or round robin through your servers for
access to downloads.

or you pay akamai for the service :-)

Is there any way around that? The name "mirror" implies (to me,
anyway) that there must be a way to make a server into a "repeater" of
another server?

yes. there is a way, but only works if the mirror uses software like rsync:
http://everythinglinux.org/rsync/
but then still you have the user to make the decision.
example:
main server: www.foo.bar
mirror in europe: www.eu.foo.bar
mirror in uk: www.uk.foo.bar
another mirror: www.example.com/foo (where the foo directory is the root
directory for the mirrored content)

on the main page you give your visitors a choice of servers, or you use
urlrewriting in a .htaccess file and decide. :-)
example: http://www.gnu.org/server/list-mirrors.html

there might be a way to automatically distribute the same content to more
than 1 server from your client.

hth, #m
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