cvsup server operation

[John Polstra]

On 10-Oct-2003 Vladimir V Egorin wrote:
> 
> After a long downtime, we've brought cvsup15.freebsd.org back
> to life.   I've noticed however something odd in the logs.
> We run updates (update.sh script) once per hour, however there
> are some clients that request updates periodically every 5-10
> minutes, sometimes as often as every 2-3 minutes.   This doesn't
> make any sense to me; this potentially could result in denial
> of updates to other clients if the queue is full of regular
> guests.
> I'd be interested in hearing whether other cvsup sites implement
> any access control mechanism that denies update to clients
> that have requested it very recently in the past, or shall I just
> pay no attention and let it be.

I don't have any automatic rate throttling on the mirrors I manage.
But I check the log files periodically.  Any time I notice somebody
abusing a mirror (e.g., with cronjob updates more frequently than once
an hour) I simply blacklist them in the cvsupd.access file.  I feel no
remorse at all about denying access to greedy jerks.  Likewise, when
I catch people doing simultaneous updates from multiple machines at
their site, I add a rule to cvsupd.access that limits them to 1 update
at a time from their subnet.  I always have a great big smile on my
face when I do that.  No guilt whatsoever. :-)

The scary thing is when you find out how few of these cronjob mirror
abusers even notice that they're not getting updates any more.

John