[Hackage] #428: cabal update uses too much bandwidth

[Hackage]

#428: cabal update uses too much bandwidth
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  Reporter:  claus               |        Owner:                   
      Type:  defect              |       Status:  new              
  Priority:  normal              |    Milestone:  cabal-install-0.8
 Component:  cabal-install tool  |      Version:  1.6.0.1          
  Severity:  normal              |   Resolution:                   
  Keywords:                      |   Difficulty:  hard (< 1 day)   
Ghcversion:  6.8.3               |     Platform:                   
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Comment (by claus):

 The `cabal` tool could try for `rsync` and fall back to the current method
 if that isn't available/useable. That would work even for windows cygwin
 (and presumably msys?) users who have `rsync` installed. Alternatively,
 put the index dirs/files into a `darcs` repo, and have `cabal` try for
 `darcs` first.

 But why not use good old `diff` or `find` on the server side (a hackage
 server service that returns a list of files/dirs changed), then fetch only
 the files/dirs that have changed (possibly with some large cutoff - if
 everything has changed, it is cheaper to fetch one tar-file instead of
 lots of little files)?

 If running a server `find` for each `cabal update` turns out to be a
 problem, one could instead provide weekly update lists on the server, with
 the clients consulting as many of those as needed (fetching the whole
 index tarball if the local index is more than a couple of months old).

-- 
Ticket URL: <http://hackage.haskell.org/trac/hackage/ticket/428#comment:3>
Hackage <http://haskell.org/cabal/>
Hackage: Cabal and related projects