ftp and filesize shenanigans

[Lloyd Wood <L.Wood@surrey.ac.uk>]

On Thu, 5 Aug 1999, Sean Murphy wrote:

> I was trying to download the ns software from your ftp server - connections
> to the berkeley server are dreadfully slow from here. I tried it a number
> of times over the last few days, and kept getting a connection refused
> error. I can ftp in to the USurrey ftp server, but not the ee server.

Looks like when they rebooted the box no-one noticed that the ftp
daemon didn't come back up. It's now getting looked into - thanks.

> Another thing - I downloaded the s/w through your http server, 

http://www.ee.surrey.ac.uk/Personal/L.Wood/ns/
always nice to have a fallthrough plan...

> and found that the ns-src-2.1b5.tar.gz file is enormous. It's almost
> as big as the allinone files.

15050579 Mar 17 01:12 ns-src-2.1b5.tar.gz

14.4Mb! It's 14.4Mb! Look at the size of that thing!  Even ns-current
with nsdoc is only 11Mb. The old wireless version in the Berkeley http
server (which we don't mirror) seems similarly afflicted - 15.3Mb, yet
the new version is 8Mb.

> When I downloaded it, gunzipped it, untarred
> it and then retarred and recompressed it, it ended up just over half
> the size. I think the problem is with the tar program used to generate
> the original source. 

Certainly looks like it:

22483456 Mar 17 01:12 ns-src-2.1b5.tar
15312384 Aug  5 17:18 ns21b5redone.tar

15050579 Mar 17 01:12 ns-src-2.1b5.tar.gz
 8453284 Aug  5 17:18 ns21b5redone.tar.gz


> I can make my tar available, and you can compare
> it to the file thats on the server if you want.

It checks with what I'm seeing.

> Just thought it might be useful to save on download times.

Well, this is just a daily full mirror of the Berkeley original, so
the contents of the directory are beyond my control - anyone want to
check into how 2.1b5 and the old wireless version were tarred, retar
them, and make sure 2.1b6 is smaller?

cheers,

L.

and if someone could explain the Sep 27 1998 tclcl-src-current in
vint/ to me I'd be most grateful.

> Rgds,
> Sean.
> 
> *--------------------------------------------------------------------*
> * Sean Murphy                       | Phone : +353-1-7045080         *
> * School of Electronic Engineering, | Fax   : +353-1-7045092         *
> * Dublin City University,           | EMail : s.murphy@teltec.dcu.ie *
> * Glasnevin,                        |                                *
> * Dublin 9, Ireland                 |                                *
> *--------------------------------------------------------------------*

<L.Wood@surrey.ac.uk>PGP<http://www.ee.surrey.ac.uk/Personal/L.Wood/>