Mirror is a package written in Perl that uses the ftp protocol to
duplicate a directory hierarchy between the machine it is run on and a
remote host.  It avoids copying files unnecessarily by comparing the
file timestamps and sizes before transfering.  Amongst other things
can optionally compress, gzip, and split files.

It was written for use by archive maintainers but can be used by
anyone wanting to transfer a lot of files over ftp.


INSTALLATION:
You *may* need to change the values of $extra_path and $big_temp at
the start of mirror.pl.  This is very unlikely but possible.

If your system limits the length of a file name a lot then also look for:
	LIMITED NAMELEN
which is about 75% of the way thru mirror.pl.  I only know of one site using
this.


IF INSTALLING MIRROR JUST FOR ARCHIVE MAINTENANCE:

Normally pick a directory that you want to run mirror from.  Unravel the tar
image in that directory.  Edit the mirror.defaults to reflect local settings.

IF YOU ARE PLANNING ON MAKING MIRROR AVAILABLE AS A USER COMMAND:

Install into a publically accessible lib area (for example
/usr/local/lib/mirror) and add a symlink from a suitable bin area to
the mirror.pl in the lib directory.  It this is not possible given
your local setup install all the .pl scripts into a lib area that will
be scanned by perl and install the binary in a suitable bin.


If h2ph has been run for your system then you should probably remove
socket.ph and use the one *meant* for your machine.  If h2ph has not
been run then you should persuade your systems administrators to do
so.  The contents of socket.ph are operating system specific and it is
possible that what works for me will not work for you.

A special note for Solaris 2.x users.  The socket.ph created by h2ph doesn't
work.  Install the socket.ph-solaris from this distribution instead.

There seems to be a problem with older versions of perl that causes
mirror to fail with the message 'fstype unix unknown'.  If you experience
this then please upgrade your perl.  The latest perl can be found in
src.doc.ic.ac.uk:gnu/perl-4.036.tar.gz  (the exact version number may
be different).

AVAILABILITY:
The latest version of mirror is available from:

	src.doc.ic.ac.uk [146.169.2.1]
		directory: computing/archiving/mirror
		(shortcut packages/mirror)
	
        ftp.th-darmstadt.de [130.83.55.75]
        	directory: pub/networking/mirror


	ftp.sun.ac.za [146.232.213.2]
		directory: pub/packages/mirror

	archive.orst.edu [128.193.4.2]
		directory: pub/mirrors/src.doc.ic.ac.uk/computing/archiving/mirror
		(shortcut pub/packages/mirror)


RELATED:
Mirror is part of a family of related programs.  The others are ftpmail
and ftpcat.  Ftpmail is a mail responder and ftpcat cats a remote file.
These are to be found in src.doc.ic.ac.uk:packages/ftpmail/
and packages/ftpcat/.

If you are interested in developing mirror (not just getting the
latest releases but actually doing work) there is a mailing list
mirror-people@doc.ic.ac.uk.  Subscribe by emailing to
mirror-people-request@doc.ic.ac.uk.   But please do NOT do this unless you
have the time to work on mirror.




REMEMBER:

Objects in a mirror are closer than you think!