🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1991May22.174325.6230@chinet.chi.il.us> les@chinet.chi.il.us (Leslie Mikesell) writes:

   How do you feel about requests like checking the directory of the
   test versions of kermit on watsun.cc.columbia.edu on a weekly basis?

Les,

If you can specify exactly where the files you are interested in are,
it is straightforward to maintain a reasonably up to date shadow
directory of the remote FTP site and make that directory available for
UUCP.  Updates can be handled in a number of ways

- triggered by references of new versions in comp.archives
- refreshed on demand by users who make a request like 
      rftp -dir watsun.cc.columbia.edu:/kermit/test/ ./kermit-test-dir.out
  to see what's out there
- kept up by hand by humans if there's something amiss
- automatically shadowed weekly or every n days according to need
- changes noticed whenever "archie" updates are done

Naturally you'd like to keep whatever mechanisms there are for making
sure that the file you fetch is the same as the latest version on the
server somewhat hidden from the general "rftp" user, so that your
caching will have a reasonable chance to work.  No sense in going off
to bother Columbia if you have a copy handy that's the same as what
they have.

UUNET has the "kept up by hand" part down pat, and I believe they have
some automatic shadows running.  There's a site in Australia that's
caching based on comp.archives.  Other schemes have been proposed as
well. 

--Ed