Mirror site

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Mirror sites or mirrors are replicas of other websites. The concept of mirroring applies to network services accessible through any protocol, such as HTTP or FTP. Such sites have different URLs than the original site, but host identical or near-identical content. [1] Mirror sites are often located in a different geographic region than the original, or upstream site. The purpose of mirrors is to reduce network traffic, improve access speed, ensure availability of the original site for technical [2] or political reasons, [3] or provide a real-time backup of the original site. [4] [5] [6] Mirror sites are particularly important in developing countries, where internet access may be slower or less reliable. [7]

Contents

Mirror sites were heavily used on the early internet, when most users accessed through dialup and the Internet backbone had much lower bandwidth than today, making a geographically-localized mirror network a worthwhile benefit. Download archives such as Info-Mac, Tucows and CPAN maintained worldwide networks mirroring their content accessible over HTTP or anonymous FTP. Some of these networks, such as Info-Mac or Tucows are no longer active or have removed their mirrored download sections, but some like CPAN or the Debian package mirrors are still active in 2023. [8] Debian removed FTP access to its mirrors in 2017 because of declining use and the relative stagnation of the FTP protocol, mentioning FTP servers' lack of support for techniques such as caching and load balancing that are available to HTTP. [9] Modern mirrors support HTTPS and IPv6 along with IPv4. [10]

On occasion, some mirrors may choose not to replicate the entire contents of the upstream server because of technical constraints, or selecting only a subset relevant to their purpose, such as software written in a particular programming language, runnable on a single computer platform, or written by one author. These sites are called partial mirrors or secondary mirrors. [11]

Examples

Notable websites with mirrors include Project Gutenberg, [12] KickassTorrents, [13] [14] [15] [16] The Pirate Bay, [17] [18] [19] [20] WikiLeaks, [21] [22] the website of the Environmental Protection Agency, [23] [24] and Wikipedia. [25] [26] [27] Some notable partial mirrors include free and open-source software projects such as GNU, [28] in particular Linux distributions CentOS, [29] Debian, [30] Fedora, [31] and Ubuntu; [32] [33] such projects provide mirrors of the download sites (since those are expected to have high server load). Many open source application providers such as VideoLAN use mirrors to distribute VLC Media Player, [34] and The Document Foundation uses mirrors to distribute LibreOffice. [35]

It was once common for tech companies such as Microsoft, Hewlet-Packard or Apple to maintain a network of mirrors accessible over HTTP or anonymous FTP, hosting software updates, sample code and various freely-downloadable utilities. Much of these sites were shut down in the first decades of the 21st century, with Apple shutting down its FTP services in 2012 and Microsoft stopping updates in 2010. [36] [37] Today, the contents of a number of these mirror sites are archived at The FTP Site Boneyard. [38] Occasionally, some people will use web scraping software to produce static dumps of existing sites, such as the BBC's Top Gear and RedFlagDeals.

See also

Related Research Articles

The Comprehensive Perl Archive Network (CPAN) is a repository of over 250,000 software modules and accompanying documentation for 39,000 distributions, written in the Perl programming language by over 12,000 contributors. CPAN can denote either the archive network or the Perl program that acts as an interface to the network and as an automated software installer. Most software on CPAN is free and open source software.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Konqueror</span> Web browser and file manager

Konqueror is a free and open-source web browser and file manager that provides web access and file-viewer functionality for file systems. It forms a core part of the KDE Software Compilation. Developed by volunteers, Konqueror can run on most Unix-like operating systems. The KDE community licenses and distributes Konqueror under GNU GPL-2.0-or-later.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Linux distribution</span> Operating system based on the Linux kernel

A Linux distribution is an operating system made from a software collection that includes the Linux kernel, and often a package management system. Linux users usually obtain their operating system by downloading one of the Linux distributions, which are available for a wide variety of systems ranging from embedded devices and personal computers to powerful supercomputers.

Uploading refers to transmitting data from one computer system to another through means of a network. Common methods of uploading include: uploading via web browsers, FTP clients], and terminals (SCP/SFTP). Uploading can be used in the context of clients that send files to a central server. While uploading can also be defined in the context of sending files between distributed clients, such as with a peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing protocol like BitTorrent, the term file sharing is more often used in this case. Moving files within a computer system, as opposed to over a network, is called file copying.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wget</span> Computer command line program for downloading

GNU Wget is a computer program that retrieves content from web servers. It is part of the GNU Project. Its name derives from "World Wide Web" and "get". It supports downloading via HTTP, HTTPS, and FTP.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Light-weight Linux distribution</span> Operating system with low resource requirements

A light-weight Linux distribution is one that uses lower memory and/or has less processor-speed requirements than a more "feature-rich" Linux distribution. The lower demands on hardware ideally result in a more responsive machine, and/or allow devices with fewer system resources to be used productively. The lower memory and/or processor-speed requirements are achieved by avoiding software bloat, i.e. by leaving out features that are perceived to have little or no practical use or advantage, or for which there is no or low demand.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ubuntu</span> Linux distribution developed by Canonical

Ubuntu is a Linux distribution based on Debian and composed mostly of free and open-source software. Ubuntu is officially released in three editions: Desktop, Server, and Core for Internet of things devices and robots. All of the editions can run on a computer alone, or in a virtual machine. Ubuntu is a popular operating system for cloud computing, with support for OpenStack. Ubuntu's default desktop changed back from the in-house Unity to GNOME after nearly 6.5 years in 2017 upon the release of version 17.10.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">SquirrelMail</span> Software project

SquirrelMail is a project that aims to provide both a web-based email client and a proxy server for the IMAP protocol.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">FileZilla</span> Free software, cross-platform file transfer protocol application

FileZilla is a free and open-source, cross-platform FTP application, consisting of FileZilla Client and FileZilla Server. Clients are available for Windows, Linux, and macOS. Both server and client support FTP and FTPS, while the client can in addition connect to SFTP servers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jigdo</span> Software

Jigdo is a utility typically used for downloading to piece together a large file, most commonly an optical disk image such as a CD, DVD or Blu-ray Disc (BD) image, from many smaller individual constituent files. The constituent files may be local and/or retrieved from one or more mirror sites. Jigdo's features are similar to BitTorrent, but unlike BitTorrent, Jigdo uses a client-server model, not peer-to-peer.

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vsftpd,, is an FTP server for Unix-like systems, including Linux. It is the default FTP server in the Ubuntu, CentOS, Fedora, NimbleX, Slackware and RHEL Linux distributions. It is licensed under the GNU General Public License. It supports IPv6, TLS and FTPS.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Metalink</span> File format that describes one or more computer files available for download

Metalink is an extensible metadata file format that describes one or more computer files available for download. It specifies files appropriate for the user's language and operating system; facilitates file verification and recovery from data corruption; and lists alternate download sources.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">BELNET</span>

Belnet is a Belgian internet provider for educational institutions, research centres, scientific institutes and government services. Since 1993, BELNET provides web services to higher education, federal departments and ministries, and international organisations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">WeeChat</span> IRC client

WeeChat is a free and open-source Internet Relay Chat client that is designed to be light and fast. It is released under the terms of the GNU GPL-3.0-or-later and has been developed since 2003.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kiwix</span> Open-source offline browser for public domain projects

Kiwix is a free and open-source offline web browser created by Emmanuel Engelhart and Renaud Gaudin in 2007. It was first launched to allow offline access to Wikipedia, but has since expanded to include other projects from the Wikimedia Foundation, public domain texts from Project Gutenberg, many of the Stack Exchange sites, and many other resources. Available in more than 100 languages, Kiwix has been included in several high-profile projects, from smuggling operations in North Korea and encyclopedic access in Cuba to Google Impact Challenge's recipient Bibliothèques Sans Frontières.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">InterPlanetary File System</span> Content-addressable, peer-to-peer hypermedia distribution protocol

The InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) is a protocol, hypermedia and file sharing peer-to-peer network for storing and sharing data in a distributed file system. IPFS uses content-addressing to uniquely identify each file in a global namespace connecting IPFS hosts.

References

  1. ↑ Glushko, Robert J. (25 August 2014). The Discipline of Organizing: Core Concepts Edition. "O'Reilly Media, Inc.". ISBN   9781491912812 . Retrieved 29 April 2017.
  2. ↑ "Debian worldwide mirror sites". Using a nearby server will probably speed up your download, and also reduce the load on our central servers and on the Internet as a whole.
  3. ↑ "Impending Trump has Internet Archive mirror to Canada". 29 November 2016. The Internet Archive has several mirrors up right now, and Canada is set to be its next. This move is taking place specifically because of the new presidential elect Trump here in the United States.
  4. ↑ "What is Mirror Site? Webopedia Definition". www.webopedia.com. 21 July 1998. Retrieved 29 April 2017.
  5. ↑ "What is Mirror Site? - Definition from Techopedia". Techopedia.com. Retrieved 29 April 2017.
  6. ↑ Wisshak, Max; Tapanila, Leif (2 June 2008). Current Developments in Bioerosion. Springer Science & Business Media. ISBN   9783540775973 . Retrieved 29 April 2017.
  7. ↑ Sekikawa, A.; Sa, E. R.; Acosta, B.; Aaron, D. J.; Laporte, R. E. (2000). "Internet mirror sites - The Lancet". Lancet. 355 (9219): 2000. doi:10.1016/s0140-6736(05)72944-5. PMID   10859070. S2CID   32218172. We all become frustrated when web pages take minutes to unfold. This can increase the gap between infrastructure haves and have-nots. Downloading time is important for other reasons; users connecting to the internet via telephone line in many countries are charged per minute and slow downloading itself may make users lose interest.
  8. ↑ "The status of CPAN mirrors". mirrors.cpan.org. Retrieved 5 February 2023.
  9. ↑ "Debian Project to Shut Down Its Public FTP Services, Developers Are Not Affected". 26 April 2017. The decision to close the Debian FTP services for users was made because the FTP servers in their current state lack support for acceleration or caching, and they aren't quite used lately due to the fact that the Debian Installer no longer provides an FTP option for accessing mirrors since more than ten years ago... FTP as a protocol appears to no longer be efficient, requiring adding strange workarounds to firewalls and load-balancing daemons.
  10. ↑ "CSpace Hostings Public Mirror". This page and mirror are available over IPv4 and IPv6 and accessible over HTTP, HTTPS and Rsync
  11. ↑ "Debian worldwide mirror sites". A secondary mirror site may have restrictions on what they mirror
  12. ↑ "Project Gutenberg, nonprofit organization". In addition, dozens of "mirror" Web sites were created around the world, where the e-books were also stored and available for downloading.
  13. ↑ Russon, Mary-Ann (22 July 2016). "Kickass Torrents is back: New domains, mirrors and proxies show business is as usual". International Business Times UK. Retrieved 29 April 2017.
  14. ↑ Clark, Bryan (21 July 2016). "IsoHunt just launched a working KickassTorrent mirror". The Next Web. Retrieved 29 April 2017.
  15. ↑ "Mexican Police Target Popular KickassTorrents 'Clone,' Seize Domain - TorrentFreak". TorrentFreak. 23 September 2016. Retrieved 29 April 2017.
  16. ↑ Wei, Wang. "New Kickass Torrents Site is Back Online by Original Staffers". The Hacker News. Retrieved 29 April 2017.
  17. ↑ "The Piratebay Blocked By Chrome, Mirror Sites Accessible". iTech Post. 8 October 2016. Retrieved 29 April 2017.
  18. ↑ "The Pirate Bay is blocked Australia wide... except it really isn't". CNET. Retrieved 29 April 2017.
  19. ↑ "Pirate Bay Mirror Shut Down: Alternative Clone Had Kickass Torrents Skin, Vows To Continue". Tech Times. 24 September 2016. Retrieved 29 April 2017.
  20. ↑ "Pirate Bay Blocked By Google Chrome And Firefox: Kickass Torrents Mirror, Extratorrent, Torrentz And Other Clones Accessible". Tech Times. 8 October 2016. Retrieved 29 April 2017.
  21. ↑ Greenemeier, Larry. "How Has WikiLeaks Managed to Keep Its Web Site Up and Running?". Scientific American. Retrieved 29 April 2017.
  22. ↑ Schroeder, Stan (6 December 2010). "WikiLeaks Now Has Hundreds of Mirrors". Mashable. Retrieved 29 April 2017.
  23. ↑ "The EPA Posted a Mirror of Its Website Before Trump Can Gut the Real One". Vice. 16 February 2017. Retrieved 29 April 2017.
  24. ↑ Hiltzik, Michael (24 April 2017). "Did 'people power' save a trove of EPA data from a shutdown by Trump?". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 29 April 2017.
  25. ↑ "How to set up your own copy of Wikipedia - ExtremeTech". ExtremeTech. 18 January 2012. Retrieved 29 April 2017.
  26. ↑ Broughton, John (2008). Wikipedia: The Missing Manual. "O'Reilly Media, Inc.". ISBN   9780596515164 . Retrieved 29 April 2017.
  27. ↑ Ayers, Phoebe; Matthews, Charles; Yates, Ben (2008). How Wikipedia Works: And how You Can be a Part of it. No Starch Press. ISBN   9781593271763 . Retrieved 29 April 2017.
  28. ↑ "gnu.org". www.gnu.org. Retrieved 27 August 2017.
  29. ↑ "CentOS Mirror". CentOS Mirror.
  30. ↑ "Debian worldwide mirror sites". www.debian.org. Retrieved 27 August 2017.
  31. ↑ "Home - MirrorManager". admin.fedoraproject.org. Retrieved 27 August 2017.
  32. ↑ "Mirrors : Ubuntu". Ubuntu Archive Mirrors.
  33. ↑ "Mirrors : Ubuntu". Ubuntu CD Mirrors.
  34. ↑ "Mirrors - VideoLAN". www.videolan.org.
  35. ↑ "The Document Foundation Mirrors". download.documentfoundation.org.
  36. ↑ "How do I access the MICROSOFT FTP server? - Windows 10 Help Forums". www.tenforums.com.
  37. ↑ "Microsoft has closing ftp://ftp.microsoft.com". www.betaarchive.com.
  38. ↑ "The FTP Site Boneyard : Free Software : Free Download, Borrow and Streaming : Internet Archive". archive.org.
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