After spending some time examining http-replicator I think that it's a
much better foundation for further development of InstantMirror
features than mod_python is. Running as a standalone daemon lets it
handle concurrent requests more naturally.
As a bonus, http-replicator supports upstream ftp servers as well as
http, and deals with byte-range requests properly (more properly than
InstantMirror does, at least).
Unlike InstantMirror, the current http-replicator implements a
traditional http proxy rather than a transparent proxy. It was pretty
easy to hack in a new --mirror option that lets it support either
mode. With the attached patch (applied atop
http-replicator_4.0alpha1), http-replicator acts as a drop-in
replacement for InstantMirror:
./http-replicator --port 80 --root /mirrors --mirror
http://download.fedora.redhat.com --nohost --daemon mirror.log
If this works for someone besides me, I'll submit the patch to the
http-replicator maintainer.
--Ed