Improving distfile mirror structure

Author

Michał Górny

Date
2019-10-13
Version
1.2

Contents

Preface

The Gentoo distfile mirror network is essential in distributing sources to our users. It offloads upstream download locations, improves throughput and reliability, guarantees distfile persistency.

The current structure of distfile mirrors dates back to 2002. It might have worked well back when we mirrored around 2500 files but it proved not to scale well. Today, mirrors hold almost 70 000 files, and this number has been causing problems for mirror admins.

The most recent discussion on restructuring mirrors started in January 2015. I have started the preliminary research in January 2017, and it resulted in GLEP 75 being created in January 2018. With the actual implementation effort starting in October 2019, I'd like to summarize all the data and update it with fresh statistics. 4 5

Current state of distfile mirrors

Mirror setup

The official Gentoo mirror list includes 63 mirrors at the moment. Almost all of them are outside Gentoo control, and are administered by various individuals. They generally use rsync to fetch data from Gentoo's master mirror but it is unclear what exact rsync options are used. The Infra documentation did not include an explicit recommendation for those until 2015. 6

The rsync options regarding hard link and symbolic link handling are of specific interest to the mirror layout switch.

Hard links are not detected by rsync by default, and therefore hard linked files are transferred and stored separately on the target filesystem. This can be changed using --hard-links option that causes rsync to detect hard links on the source filesystem and to recreate them.

In January 2018, Robin H. Johnson attempted to survey mirror admins with regards to the use of this option. The original thread receives 5 replies, 3 of them indicating that the discussed option was enabled prior, the remaining 2 mirrors enabling it afterwards. The number of replies was too small to make a positive general assumption but through extrapolation we can suspect that even 40% of mirrors may not preserve hard links. 7

Symbolic links are not transferred by rsync by default. There are a few options that enable handling them, notably --links that enables copying symbolic links, and --copy-links that resolves them and copies underlying files. The former option is implicitly enabled by --archive.

The specific behavior of rsync makes it possible to remotely test for symlink support. For this purpose, I have planted a symlink on the master mirror on 2019-10-07. Two days later, the majority of mirrors successfully mirrored the symlink. 2 mirrors have not synced yet, and one gives 403 error (though it gives 404 for non-existing files, so it probably copied the symlink correctly and rejects access to the underlying file).

Distfile structure

The distfiles are placed in a single directory, using local filenames specified by ebuilds (either inferred from the URI, or specified using the arrow operator). Distfiles for newly added packages are added immediately, while old distfiles are removed after an additional delay.

As of 2019-10-09 10:00 UTC, the master mirror includes 69 617 files, totalling approximately 260 GiB. The Manifests in matching Gentoo repository tree contain approximately 54 651 unique distfiles. This indicates that over 20% of files stored on the mirrors are preserved old distfiles. 1

A plain text index of all files (created through calling find) is almost 2 MiB of size. Generating a HTML index by the web server takes a few seconds, and produces 15 MiB of data. Plain ls >/dev/null with warm cache takes almost half a second.

The biggest distfile group belongs to TeΧ Live, that counts 16 075 files. This accounts for 23% of all mirrored distfiles. The second most common prefix is github.com which belongs to Go packages, and includes 1120 files. All other apparent groups have less than 1% share.

improving-distfile-mirror-structure/distfile-count-over-time.svg

Figure 1a: number of distfiles in the Gentoo repository

improving-distfile-mirror-structure/distfile-size-changes.svg

Figure 1b: monthly distfile removals and additions

The plot in figure 1a presents the number of uniquely-named distfiles in the Gentoo repository and their respective total size, as indicated by either the historical digest files or the newer Manifest2 format. The totals were omitted from the plot since they were indistinguishable from the higher of the two values. The plot in figure 1b presents total size of removed and added distfiles compared to the previous month. 2

The plot shows a rather steady incline of total distfile counts, with noticeable peaks corresponding to major version bumps (especially TeΧ Live), and troughs matching the removal of old versions.

There are also noticeable peaks on the size plot that correspond to adding very large files, especially lately. It is interesting that the rapid decline of distfile count around 2017 did not correspond with major reduction of total size — indicating that a large amount of small files were removed.

1

The count of distfiles indicated by Manifests is rough, since I did not precisely filter all fetch- or mirror-restricted packages.

2

The data used for plot was not filtered for fetch- or mirror-restricted packages. Therefore, it is unsurprising that it vastly exceeds the actual space used on the mirrors. Sadly, filtering historical data is non-trivial and would be very time-consuming.

Proposed replacement layouts

Filename prefix-based layout

The most straightforward method of grouping distfiles is to group by a common filename prefix, in particular by the first character of filename. Assuming case-insensitive matching, we can create 26 groups corresponding to letters, plus one group for the remaining characters. Such a split is presented on figure 2.

improving-distfile-mirror-structure/filename-prefix-layout.svg

Figure 2: grouping of distfiles by first character of filename

Please note that the y axis of the plot is on logarithmic scale. The proposed split is uneven. The t group features 18 730 files, larger groups feature up to 5000 files, the smallest around 250. Besides being very uneven, this split does not resolve the problem of huge directories.

Because of the number of files starting with texlive prefix, even longer prefix would not resolve the problem. Technically, using a dynamic prefix length might help by isolating TeΧ Live packages into a few dedicated groups. However, this increases the complexity of the solution, and still does not scale well. For example, adding a new version will double the size of all the TeΧ Live groups, and removing an old version will reduce them to half the previous size.

Filename-delimited (paged) layout

Another solution based on filenames was proposed by Andrew Barchuk. It based on splitting sorted filenames into buckets of the same size, and using the first filename in each group as a delimiter. This has the obvious advantage that the groups are initially even. 8

For example, if we choose a bucket size of 1000 files, the initial split would introduce 70 groups. A few example groups would be:

  • [01-iosevka-1.14.1.zip] .. [amsynth-1.8.0.tar.bz2]

  • AM.tar.gz .. [asterisk-core-sounds-es-gsm-1.4.22.tar.gz]

  • asterisk-core-sounds-es-siren14-1.4.21.tar.gz .. [bash40-019]

  • ...

  • tcl8.4.15-src.tar.gz .. [texlive-module-anyfontsize-2019.tar.xz]

  • texlive-module-anyfontsize.doc-2017.tar.xz .. [texlive-module-betababel.doc-2017.tar.xz]

  • ...

  • xwem-1.26-pkg.tar.gz .. [zzuf-0.15.tar.bz2]

Please note that filenames given in braces are not delimiting, i.e. additional distfiles may be added before/after them.

While this solution evens out group sizes pretty well at first, it does not scale well. For example, TeΧ Live bump will (again) double the size the relevant groups instead of being distributed evenly. It is complex, and the necessity of reshuffling may require relatively frequent maintenance.

The infeasibility of this solution can be best proven by considering what would happen if the groups were created prior to the introduction of the first TeΧ Live version. In this case, all 8000+ ebuilds would land in a single group.

Category/package-based layout

Jason Zaman has proposed to reuse the layout from ebuild repository, i.e. split by category or package and category pair. This solution has not been given much thought for three reasons. 9

Firstly, it prevents trivial reuse of the same distfiles that are shared between multiple packages. While technically this could be possible by using hard links or symbolic links, it's going to be non-trivial and fragile.

Secondly, it does not solve the problem of directories having a large number of files. For example, dev-texlive/texlive-latexextra features over 6000 files itself. The largest Manifests at the time of writing are (in lines):

6161 dev-texlive/texlive-latexextra/Manifest
1213 dev-texlive/texlive-fontsextra/Manifest
1020 games-board/tablebase-syzygy/Manifest
 967 dev-texlive/texlive-publishers/Manifest
 858 net-p2p/bisq/Manifest
 858 dev-texlive/texlive-mathscience/Manifest
 801 dev-texlive/texlive-pictures/Manifest
 568 dev-texlive/texlive-bibtexextra/Manifest
 504 app-office/libreoffice-l10n/Manifest
 490 dev-texlive/texlive-pstricks/Manifest
 378 dev-texlive/texlive-plaingeneric/Manifest
 372 www-client/firefox/Manifest
 358 www-client/firefox-bin/Manifest
 321 app-shells/bash/Manifest
 319 app-text/texlive-core/Manifest
 316 dev-texlive/texlive-latexrecommended/Manifest
 291 dev-util/sccache/Manifest
 276 x11-terms/alacritty/Manifest
 273 dev-texlive/texlive-langeuropean/Manifest
 268 dev-util/cargo-tree/Manifest

Thirdly, the groups would be very uneven still, and the resulting split would be inefficient. If grouping were done by package, there will be a huge number of directories having no more than a few distfiles.

File hash-based layout

Another option considered was to reuse the hash of distfile in question. eryptographic hash functions are generally expected to produce divergent results even for apparently insignificant differences in input. This gives a good chance for the distribution to remain even through future distfile changes.

For the purpose of testing, Blake2b hashes truncated to the respectively 4 and 8 most significant bits were considered.

improving-distfile-mirror-structure/file-hash-1x.svg

Figure 3a: grouping of distfiles by 4 msb of content hash

improving-distfile-mirror-structure/file-hash-2x.svg

Figure 3b: grouping of distfiles by 8 msb of content hash

The 4-bit hash variant produces 16 groups, having between 4250 and 5000 distfiles each. The 8-bit variant produces 256 groups, having between 230 and 320 files each. The latter proves satisfactorily even, with no groups exceeding 500 files in the foreseeable future. Technically, we could try using an interim value such as 6 bits; however, multiples of four are more convenient since they can be trivially cut from the commonly used hexadecimal encoding.

This method generally relies on the hash values being present in Manifests. Its main disadvantage is that the client can not predict the path otherwise. While this could technically be resolved by using a supplementary index, refreshing this index involves additional bandwidth usage that may even exceed the size of smaller distfiles.

Filename hash-based layout

The final proposed variant, and the one chosen to implement the new layout was to use the hash of the filename. Its advantage is that it can be calculated entirely without additional information, and the cryptographic hash functions should retain their properties even with low entropy input that filenames are.

For the purpose of testing, Blake2b hashes truncated to the respectively 4 and 8 most significant bits were considered. 3

improving-distfile-mirror-structure/filename-hash-1x.svg

Figure 4a: grouping of distfiles by 4 msb of filename hash

improving-distfile-mirror-structure/filename-hash-2x.svg

Figure 4b: grouping of distfiles by 8 msb of filename hash

Curious enough, this variant produces even more even groups. The 4-bit version gives between 4250 and 4500 distfiles in each group, while the 8-bit variant produces between 230 and 320 files.

3

During the discussion, it was argued that a simpler hash function should be used. However, the choice of hash function was not done based on its cryptographic strength (or speed) but merely because the same function is used in Manifest files. Reusing the same algorithm reduces the number of different functions the package manager needs to implement. Furthermore, the input is small enough for the performance differences to be insignificant.

Reliability of filename hash over time

Of all the options proposed so far, the filename hash is the most promising: it is flexible, easy to compute and does not require additional information. Let's see how it copes with historical distfiles.

improving-distfile-mirror-structure/filename-hash-over-time.svg

Figure 5: Statistical analysis of filename hash split applied to historical data

Figure 5 combines two sets of statistical data. The first plot compares mean group size with the median. Additionally, minimum and maximum group sizes are indicated via error bars. The second plot expresses relative standard deviation.

Initially, the standard deviation is relatively high due to small group sizes. After all, the choice of 256 groups was based on the current distfile count, and none of the groups reaches the count of 50 files before 2004. Afterwards, it settles below 10%, and generally decreases as distfile number grows.

The min/max values indicate that even with the highest number of distfiles recorded, the largest group is well below the threshold. Therefore, it seems reasonable to assume that this layout will work well for many years to come. It is probably more likely that a future layout change would occur as a consequence of Manifest hash change than the necessity of reshuffling distfiles.

Migration path

General migration plan

GLEP 75 has introduced a layout.conf file that is placed in the top distfiles directory of a mirror and specifies the layout used. The clients are expected to fetch this file before using the mirror in question, and use the layout that they support. If the file is not present, the client falls back to assuming the legacy flat layout.

This solution allows for graceful layout switches, both this time and in the foreseeable future. Mirrors that are synced from the Gentoo master mirror will obtain both the new layout and the configuration file via rsync. Custom mirrors will continue to work as-is using the flat layout.

Nevertheless, the process of switching mirror layout needs to account for two problems.

Firstly, if the new layout was not implemented by the package managers before, we need to continue supporting the old layout for a lengthy transition process until we can assume that the users have updated their systems.

Secondly, we need to assume that mirrors will not update their layouts atomically. Instead, we need to provide some time for mirrors to fetch the new layout before indicating its presence to the users. We also need to account for user-side caching.

Therefore, the following migration plan is devised:

  1. emirrordist is switched to use both the old and new layout simultaneously for newly-mirrored distfiles.

  2. The existing distfiles are mirrored into the new layout.

  3. When the mirrors can be assumed to have synced all the changes, layout.conf is updated so that users switch to the new layout.

  4. A transitional period ensues.

  5. Once the transitional period is over, the old layout is removed from layout.conf.

  6. The old layout is removed from the mirrors.

The remaining problem is how to solve the transitions in order to avoid both transferring all the existing distfiles again and storing two copies of the same file during the transitional period.

Hybrid solution

Finally, both options can be combined to provide the best of two worlds. During the transitional period, symlinks are used to link both layouts without consuming the disk space twice. They are temporarily replaced by hard links while switching the primary layout in order to avoid transferring the file contents again.

The mirrors using --hard-links option will fully benefit from the advantages of hard links. The remaining mirrors will still transfer the files again and store them twice. However, the actual impact will be limited by performing the transition in smaller groups. While some mirrors will suffer additional bandwidth and disk space use, the issue will be limited to short periods of time and smaller groups of distfiles.

Summary

The historical layout of distfile mirrors does not scale well to modern distfile counts. While the majority of servers can cope with this, switching to a layout splitting files between multiple directories has the potential of improving performance and reliability.

Among offered solutions, using a portion of hash of filename seems to be the best one. Its main advantages are that it is relatively simple to implement, offers good distribution of distfiles and seems reasonably future proof. The preferred hash function is Blake2b, to match the primary algorithm used for Manifests, with 8-bit prefix providing reasonably small and future-proof group sizes.

The layout switching is done via per-mirror layout.conf files. This makes it possible for every mirror to use a different layout. Most notably, mirrors syncing from the master mirror will implicitly switch to the new layout, while custom mirrors will continue working correctly with the flat layout. This will also make future layout switches easier.

The change of layout involves a potentially lengthy transition period, during which both old and new layouts will need to be provided simultaneously. A hybrid approach utilizing symbolic links during most of the transition period and hard links for the primary layout switch should reduce the impact on mirrors to the possible minimum. The mirrors without --hard-links option enabled will suffer additional bandwidth use and temporary duplication of some distfiles.

That said, everything is practically ready for the change. There are a few patches still waiting for review, and a new Portage release to be made. The helper scripts for master mirror migration are ready, and the complete process has been tested. Once the last details are confirmed and the new software is deployed, the transition can start.

References

4

Bug 534528 - distfiles should be sorted into subdirectories of DISTDIR (https://bugs.gentoo.org/534528)

5

GLEP 75: Split distfile mirror directory structure (https://www.gentoo.org/glep/glep-0075.html)

6

Gentoo source mirrors (https://gentoo.org/downloads/mirrors/)

Robin H. Johnson, [gentoo-mirrors] Mirror survey re rsync --hard-link (distfiles/releases/experimental/snapshots) (https://archives.gentoo.org/gentoo-mirrors/message/3d858e29845e7626d9b376c65b64f8b7)

8

Andrew Barchuk, Re: [gentoo-dev] [pre-GLEP] Split distfile mirror directory structure (https://archives.gentoo.org/gentoo-dev/message/611bdaa76be049c1d650e8995748e7b8)

9

Jason Zaman, Re: [gentoo-dev] [pre-GLEP] Split distfile mirror directory structure (https://archives.gentoo.org/gentoo-dev/message/f26ed870c3a6d4ecf69a821723642975)