Dynamic Mirror Selection for Apache Downloads

[JoelProminic]

I noticed today that the Harman AIR SDK install was failing with this message:

@rat-moonshine reported that it was using this URL, which is currently failing with SSL errors in a browser:
https://apachemirror.wuchna.com/flex/4.16.1/binaries/apache-flex-sdk-4.16.1-bin.tar.gz

We previously discussed handing the Apache mirrors in a more dynamic way, including:

• Choosing a mirror that is geographically closer to the user
• Automatically switching to a different mirror if the selected mirror is broken.

It should be safe to use other mirrors as long as we validate that the checksum matches what is reported by Apache.

I'd like to revisit this logic sometime soon. The current milestone (3.9.0), should probably stay focused on the other updates like the Harman AIR changes (i.e. #56)

[rat-moonshine]

Here's the all available mirrors: http://www.apache.org/mirrors/. However, I'm not sure how to use them or how to get a listing of them to be use in an application. @piotrzarzycki21 please provide opinion if you has any understanding on these.

[piotrzarzycki21]

Here's the all available mirrors: http://www.apache.org/mirrors/. However, I'm not sure how to use them or how to get a listing of them to be use in an application. @piotrzarzycki21 please provide opinion if you has any understanding on these.

I don't have any knowledge about mirrors. Maybe we could do this in a simpler way. Just grab and hold couple of link mirrors and switch between them if one fail or is not available - What do you think ?

[JoelProminic]

Yeah, configuring a backup mirror could be a nice solution.

I had suggested a couple other solutions to @rat-moonshine, but I don't see them here:

• Move the download URLs to a configuration URL, so that we can update it without releasing a new version of MSDKI
• Investigate the Flex SDK Installer logic we use for the Adobe AIR version of the SDK, and check if we can reuse the logic here. I think this code already has a way to select a mirror. I think we have gotten mirror errors on the main Flex SDK download before, so we may want to extend this logic so that it can automatically check other mirrors on a connection or checksum error.

[rat-moonshine]

Investigate the Flex SDK Installer logic we use for the Adobe AIR version of the SDK, and check if we can reuse the logic here. I think this code already has a way to select a mirror. I think we have gotten mirror errors on the main Flex SDK download before, so we may want to extend this logic so that it can automatically check other mirrors on a connection or checksum error.

Yes, I have a plan to work on this in upcoming days. This should be the best way to meet this problem, and maybe also help us to dealt with other problems in #59.

[rat-moonshine]

I have re-opened #32 for the reviewed installation process for Harman Flex/AIR SDK based on the discussion.

We shall close this issue once the said implementation/changes will complete, that suppose to take care the handling of mirrors.

[piotrzarzycki21]

I got on our support email some complains from user about this. We should release 3.9.0 as fast as we can.

[rat-moonshine]

Mirror selection is now part of the original SDK Installer source #32 (comment).

[JoelProminic]

This is covered by #32, so I'm closing the issue.