How to become a kernel.org offical mirror

It is our hope that these requirements aren't too excessive; they have been worked out in consultation with the participants on the mirrors list at linux.kernel.org. Please review the requirement list, and if you want to sign up your site, use the link to the form at the bottom.

Requirements for official kernel.org mirror sites

1. Have a contact person and the official DNS name and IP address of the mirroring host on file;
2. Allow public access (reasonable capacity limits are obviously allowed);
3. Update their mirror via rsync (vastly preferred!) or FTP at least daily. Registered sites can optionally receive an email upon changes in the archive. Using this email to trigger an rsync mirror is by far the best way to make sure your site is as close to up to date as it can be. We highly encourage you to use such an email-triggered setup; we have template scripts available for email-triggered mirroring via rsync in the /pub/site/ directory.

   Participating hosts get privileged access to the primary archive.

4. Mirror all of /pub/linux and /pub/software, although a site may choose to exclude either gzip (.gz) or bzip2 (.bz2) format files; kernel.org maintains nearly all files in both formats.

   Please note that the paths above do not include any software mirrored by kernel.org from other sites, nor does it include kernel.org-published distributions (/pub/dist). You are of course welcome to mirror these additional directories as well if you so desire.

   NOTE: If you choose to carry only one format, please strongly consider the bzip2 format. At some point, we will probably make it mandatory for all sites to carry .bz2 files, and at some later date deprecating the .gz format entirely.

   Please see this link for storage requirements.

5. Use a virtual address or a suitable site organization so that the following URLs can work:

6. For sites that provide FTP access:
   ftp://ftp.*.kernel.org/pub/linux/
   ftp://ftp.*.kernel.org/pub/software/

   For sites that provide HTTP access:
   http://www.*.kernel.org/pub/linux/
   http://www.*.kernel.org/pub/software/

   It is absolutely essential that the paths /pub/linux and /pub/software is maintained uniformly across all hosts. We cannot add you to the system if the paths are wrong!

   In addition to the normal per-country aliases (e.g. ftp.country.kernel.org), a numbered alias (e.g. ftp3.country.kernel.org), and a site handle specific handle (e.g. ftp.yoursite.lkams.kernel.org) will be assigned to your host; note that the numbered hostnames may change as sites are added or removed. Additional host names under the kernel.org domain may be added to your host as needed.

   In the case of FTP, only IP-based virtual hosting is possible. PASV FTP mode must be available from your FTP server so that users behind firewalls or NAT will still be able to use your service.

   For an HTTP site, a virtual host can be IP- or HTTP-based (also known as name-based.) IP-based virtual hosting is preferred, but is not always possible. If you are using HTTP-based virtual hosting, please make sure to configure your system to process all .kernel.org addresses that are presented to you, and not just a specific list of names. (In Apache that is done with a ServerAlias *.kernel.org directive.)

7. A mirror may choose to participate only in FTP distribution, only in HTTP distribution, or both.
8. In general, we ask that only sites with a 2 Mbit/s connectivity (10 Mbit/s in the USA) to the Internet or better participate as official mirrors. However, in some localities that just doesn't make sense (think of a mirror on a small island country with only a very slow link to the outside world.) If you want to participate anyway, please contact ftpadmin@kernel.org before completing the registration form.
9. Announcing who is running/sponsoring the mirror site is obviously permitted (added here since someone asked.) In particular, changing the style of automatically generated HTTP indicies is not a problem.
10. Please subscribe to the mirrors list by visiting http://linux.kernel.org/mailman/listinfo/mirrors.
11. The kernel.org administrators reserve the right to drop sites for any reason if it is, in their opinion, necessary.