Core Update: bad mirror selection and download speed

Getting Started with IPFire
1

Hello,
I have the following setup:
INet Router → IPFire A → IPFire B + C
B + C use A as gateway

If I start a core update on A, it choose a mirror from EU and download speed is fast.
If I start a core update on B or C, it choose always the south african mirror “ipfire.mirror.ac.za” and download speed is very slow (10-100 kb/s) and the update takes a very long time (up to 1h).

Maybe anyone can analyse and fix this problem in pakfire?

Edit:
Current pakfire log from core update on B:

May 18 18:35:38 ipfire-B pakfire: MIRROR INFO: 25 servers found in list
May 18 18:35:38 ipfire-B pakfire: DOWNLOAD INFO: Host: quantum-mirror.hu (HTTPS) - File: mirrors/pub/ipfire/pakfire2/2.25-x86_64/lists/core-list.db
May 18 18:35:38 ipfire-B pakfire: DOWNLOAD INFO: mirrors/pub/ipfire/pakfire2/2.25-x86_64/lists/core-list.db has size of 903 bytes
May 18 18:35:38 ipfire-B pakfire: DOWNLOAD INFO: HTTP-Status-Code: 200 - 200 OK
May 18 18:35:38 ipfire-B pakfire: DOWNLOAD INFO: File received. Start checking signature…
May 18 18:35:38 ipfire-B pakfire: DOWNLOAD INFO: Signature of core-list.db is fine.
May 18 18:35:38 ipfire-B pakfire: DOWNLOAD FINISHED: mirrors/pub/ipfire/pakfire2/2.25-x86_64/lists/core-list.db
May 18 18:35:38 ipfire-B pakfire: CORE UPGR: Upgrading from release 155 to 156
May 18 18:35:38 ipfire-B pakfire: DOWNLOAD STARTED: meta/meta-core-upgrade-156
May 18 18:35:38 ipfire-B pakfire: MIRROR INFO: 25 servers found in list
May 18 18:35:38 ipfire-B pakfire: DOWNLOAD INFO: Host: mirror.aarnet.edu.au (HTTPS) - File: pub/ipfire/pakfire2/2.25-x86_64/meta/meta-core-upgrade-156
May 18 18:35:40 ipfire-B pakfire: DOWNLOAD INFO: pub/ipfire/pakfire2/2.25-x86_64/meta/meta-core-upgrade-156 has size of 997 bytes
May 18 18:35:42 ipfire-B pakfire: DOWNLOAD INFO: HTTP-Status-Code: 200 - 200 OK
May 18 18:35:42 ipfire-B pakfire: DOWNLOAD INFO: File received. Start checking signature…
May 18 18:35:42 ipfire-B pakfire: DOWNLOAD INFO: Signature of meta-core-upgrade-156 is fine.
May 18 18:35:42 ipfire-B pakfire: DOWNLOAD FINISHED: pub/ipfire/pakfire2/2.25-x86_64/meta/meta-core-upgrade-156
May 18 18:35:42 ipfire-B pakfire: DOWNLOAD STARTED: paks/core-upgrade-2.25-156.ipfire
May 18 18:35:42 ipfire-B pakfire: MIRROR INFO: 25 servers found in list
May 18 18:35:42 ipfire-B pakfire: DOWNLOAD INFO: Host: ipfire.mirror.ac.za (HTTPS) - File: pakfire2/2.25-x86_64/paks/core-upgrade-2.25-156.ipfire
May 18 18:35:43 ipfire-B pakfire: DOWNLOAD INFO: pakfire2/2.25-x86_64/paks/core-upgrade-2.25-156.ipfire has size of 17834307 bytes

2

Hi,

If I start a core update on A, it choose a mirror from EU and download speed is fast.
If I start a core update on B or C, it choose always the south african mirror “ipfire.mirror.ac.za” and download speed is very slow (10-100 kb/s) and the update takes a very long time (up to 1h).

Maybe anyone can analyse and fix this problem in pakfire?

this behaviour is actually sort of intended, as Pakfire currently picks a random mirror from the
list of mirror servers known to be online that hour. Since we only have 26 mirror servers, there is
a good chance it will pick the same a few times in a row.

The only thing you could try is to search for package updates again, eventually ending up on another
mirror. This is not an elegant solution, but choosing optimal mirrors is tricky, and we simply did
not have time to improve Pakfire on that end.

Thanks, and best regards,
Peter Müller

1 Like
3

Hello,
Is there any way we (users) can restrict the list of mirrors pakfire uses?
My link with Japan is not that good, same with South Africa mirror.
Therefore I have blocked the traffic to them and restart pakfire several times until the above automated/random selection process finally gives up to these locations.
Without any intend to make a joke - but it looks like pakfire favors the mirrors with THE worst speed.

Thank you!
H&M

4

this might help:

https://wiki.ipfire.org/configuration/ipfire/pakfire/pakfireconsole#pick-a-pakfire

3 Likes