Questions on mirroring RIPE

Dear Andy,

Andy Linton wrote:
> 
> In preparation for getting a RIPE mirror running at APNIC, I copied a copy
> of the RIPE database and started the loader scripts on this. That was 73
> hours ago and we're still on the first pass through. At this stage the
> logfile recording the load is 182592742 bytes long and the the directory
> holding the MySQL database is 1063916 Kbytes in size.
> 
> Will this job finish within the next week, month, year...?

You are 1/3 way through. The longest part is loading persons objects.

> 
> Since we're running the RPSL code I took the snapshot from
> /ripe/dbase3/snapshot. Was that a good call?

Yes. But make sure, that you don't pass the object files through a
filter (like ripe2rpsl). This is specified in make_db script in the
FILTER variable.

> 
> Would an alternative option for priming a v3 server be to make a
> compressed snapshot of the MySQL database and remove the need to load the
> raw data into the MySQL database via the server?
> 

Yes. Since you are running v3 software, this is a preferred option.
However, it is only available for NRTM mirrors. The instructions on how
to download a MySQL snapshot and bootstrap the database were sent to all
NRTM clients and APNIC contact is on this mailing list. We will contact
you directly to discuss this issue.

> I suspect the machine we're using is too small for the task - any
> recommendations on minimum configurations? Should we give up until we've
> got a bigger machine or RIPE staff do the promised spring clean of the
> data (or both)?
>

The RIPE Database is currently running on Sun Enterprise 420R (2
Processors, 2GB of memory). This is more than enough. Requirements for a
mirror should be even less. 1 processor Intel PIII with 256MB of memory
should be enough to run mirror. But for loading from the flat file
snapshot it will take time. 

Loading the database from flat files on our hardware takes ~70 hours. 65
hours are spent loading person objects.
 
> Answers appreciated.
> 
> andy
> 
> 
If you have more questions regarding V3 setup, you may contact the
development team directly at dbrip at ripe.net.

Regards,

Andrei Robachevsky
DB Group Manager
RIPE NCC