Advice for Running Mirrors

Mirroring the GNU Web server

Mirroring the GNU Web server requires roughly 850MB of disk space (as of 17 August 2001).

All the cross-references between our web pages use absolute file names (starting with /). We chose this convention because some browsers get confused by relative file names in links; in addition, counting the number of times to use ../ in a relative file name is not reliable.

The absolute file names assume that the root web directory is the top-level GNU directory. If your mirror server is not dedicated to the GNU project alone, that will not be true. Here are ways you can compensate for that:

Use Roxen (formerly called Spinner) as your web server, and set up a separate ``virtual server'' whose root web directory is the top-level GNU directory. That virtual server will be the GNU mirror.
There are other web servers which support virtual servers. For example Apache (another free server) supports them.
It should not be very hard to write a shell script to modify the contents of the pages to go in a subdirectory. The script should insert an additional directory name and a slash after each occurrence of HREF="../ inside an <A tag and of SRC="../ inside an <IMG tag. It should not modify other occurrences of HREF or SRC.
If you'd like to write this script and verify that it works properly for all our pages, that would be useful.

Once your mirror site is operating, you can update the contents automatically, by

using the GPLed program rsync. Using rsync you can make daily copies of only the changes that has been made between your local copy and www.gnu.org. You could use rsync like this to mirror www.gnu.org;
```
       $ rsync -rlpt -v -z --delete www.gnu.org::www <local directory>
       
```
The -v is optional and will give you a verbose output of the work beeing performed.
using the GPLed program Wget, an non-interactive web-mirroring utility.
You can download Wget, via anonymous FTP, from ftp://gnjilux.cc.fer.hr/pub/unix/util/wget/wget.tar.gz. Or at its mirror at ftp://sunsite.auc.dk/pub/infosystems/wget/ or http://sunsite.auc.dk/ftp/pub/infosystems/wget/

Mirroring the GNU FTP server

Mirroring the GNU FTP server requires roughly 3.3GB of disk space (as of 17 August 2001).

When mirroring our FTP server, we suggest that you use the GPLed program rsync or Wget.

Using rsync you can make daily copies of only the changes that has been made between your local copy and ftp.gnu.org. You could use rsync like this to mirror ftp.gnu.org;

$ rsync -rlpt -v -z --delete ftp.gnu.org::ftp <local directory>

The -v is optional and will give you a verbose output of the work beeing performed.

Return to GNU's home page.

FSF & GNU inquiries & questions to gnu@gnu.org. Other ways to contact the FSF.

Comments on these web pages to webmasters@www.gnu.org, send other questions to gnu@gnu.org.

Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium, provided this notice is preserved.

Updated: Last modified: Fri Aug 17 10:20:19 CEST 2001