[tor-mirrors] Space needed for a mirror

[hackerncoder]

On 7/23/21 11:29 PM, Roger Dingledine wrote:
> On Fri, Jul 23, 2021 at 10:40:30AM -0600, Dave Warren wrote:
>> https://2019.www.torproject.org/docs/running-a-mirror.html.en indicates that
>> the website and distribution directory currently require 30GB and to expect
>> up to 50GB.
>>
>> dist is currently over 80GB. Is this normal/expected?
> 
> Yes. It depends mainly on how many versions of Tor Browser are on dist
> at once, and with a stable version and an alpha version, and new releases
> coming out, sometimes there are quite a few versions published at once.
> 
>> Just wondering if this is temporary, or if I should provision a bit more
>> disk space?
> 
> It's worse than that -- the running-a-mirror page that you point to is
> on the old website, and there is no equivalent on the new website. We
> have no plans currently for how to make good use of third-party website
> mirrors. We used to send them to people with gettor (for censored users
> who can't reach our main websites), but for now putting content on github
> and archive.org seems like an easier more scalable approach.
> 
> So I think we have the old mirror operators in limbo wondering if it's
> useful to continue.
> 
> Is it? Should we shut this mirror thing down more thoroughly? Or try to
> rescue it to be useful in a new way?

As you said, github, gitlab, archive.org are probably more scalable, and 
maybe harder to block (it's practically domain fronting). Not only that, 
but they aren't run by random people. And the Tor Project controls 
updates... for good... or bad [1].

I've talked to you before about mirrors, on IRC, I offered to take up 
the mirrors project, currently the web/mirrors page is saying there 
isn't a maintainer.

What I see is a nearly gone thing. No maintainer, outdated website, 
better?/other ways for distribution. I personally think, and I say this 
hosting a mirror [2], it should be shut down for good. People will 
probably continue to create new mirrors... I did. Is it worth their time 
and effort?

I'd love to hear what thoughts others have, if there is something, or 
some way this can be rescued, some way for it to be useful.

> --Roger

[1] I see it's still 10.0.14 on github.
[2] https://tor.encryptionin.space. No downloads, partially because they 
take up damn much space, and partly because I also mirror support and 
point people at my page when clicking how to verify TB, can they trust me?