mirrors - measure response times from mirrors

mirrors [ -f file ] [ -n max ] [ -v ] [ -h ]

Mirrors runs fping(1) for each site listed in file to measure the round trip time of a small ICMP packet. It reports the results in increasing order of response time (i.e., fastest one first). Smaller response times give higher download speed.

When mirrors runs it may first give error messages ending "address not found" meaning your domain name servers could not find the IP address. Then it gives error messages starting "ICMP Unreachable" meaning the site did not answer the ICMP echo request. These sites are not in the final list of response times and FQDN. A large FDQN file like debian can take several minutes to process. Be patient!

-d

Display extra messages for debugging.

-f file

where file contains the FQDN of the sites compared one per line. The base directory for file is /etc/mirror/sites/. The default is to give a help message. You can have a file in /etc/mirror/sites/ for each archive network you mirror. If file is not found here mirrors searches the current working directory. The mirror package includes FQDN list files CPAN, CTANand debian for the corresponding archive networks. You can remove a site from mirrors tests by deleting or commenting its line in file.

-h

Displays a short help message.

-n max

The number of sites displayed at program end. The default value is 20.

-v

Display version and copyright information.

The closest and fastest mirror may not be the most up to date and complete. You must also consider ISP charges in selecting a mirror. Before mirroring a site check its READMEs to see if mirroring is permitted.

Dirk Eddelbuettel <edd@debian.org> wrote debian-mirrors between 1998 and 2001. Ian Maclaine-cross <iml@debian.org> generalized and renamed it mirrors in 2003.

Ian Maclaine-cross <iml@debian.org>

fping(1), mirror(1), mirror-master(1), netselect(1).