[Dev] New tier 1 mirror server The Netherlands

[bill-auger]

if the task were only to add a new mirror, that is quite easy to
do, but it is not a high priority -  the mirror network is
healthier than ever now - in fact, it is becoming problematic to
add new mirrors; because the number of mirrors has almost
doubled in the past few years, and each new one adds load onto
the repo server, which is already over-loaded - we have been
working out plan to split the mirrors into tiers - that will
take some time and effort to accomplish though

that was not to say that we do not want any more mirrors - it is
always good to grow the mirror network; but there is no urgency
to that either - in fact, we hope that mirrors are dedicated for
the long-term; so some initial delay is prudent - as a point of
reference, the last two new mirrors did not get added to the
mirrorlist until a month or two after they requested - it is not
unreasonable, for example, to expect that someone may request to
join the mirror network and then shut down a month later -
patience is a virtue, as they say

as this thread subject suggests though, this could be one of the
tier 1 mirrors; and those entail significantly more
responsibility, and so deserve more scrutiny - there are some
logistics to work out first, in order to avoid adding more load
onto the repo server - that is the reason why i did not respond
immediately

the first step is to create a new mailing list dedicated to
mirrors - some of the current mirror operators have suggested
one, so there could be a low-volume channel, for only important
communication among the mirror operators, rather than expecting
everyone to subscribe to the 'dev' list

next, i have an email prepared to send out to all the mirrors
operators, asking some to be on tier 1 and stick to a rigid and
rapid sync schedule, (eg: 3-4 times per hour), and for the
others to start synchronizing with one of the tier 1 mirrors,
and also increasing their rate closer to once per hour - some of
them sync only once or twice per day now, while others sync
every 10 minutes, and yet others sync erratically - overall, it
should be a nice improvement for user-experience, to normalize
the sync rates across mirrors

regarding this new mirror, some of requested information was not
supplied - the wiki article requests that the introduction email
should include the name of the responsible party or organization
which operates the service, a secondary contact, and the precise
sync schedule - those are currently not essential, because all
mirrors are effectively tier 2 currently; but that information
will be essential for tier 1 mirrors

tier 1 mirrors will effectively be critical infrastructure; and
tier 1 mirror operators are effectively trusted team members -
not "trusted" as a matter of security (signatures accomplish
that), but as a matter of reliability - a significant proportion
of the mirror network will be dependent on their respective tier
1 mirrors; so there should be more than one possible way to
contact the operators in case of problems - if we only have a
single email address for an anonymous person, and especially
with that email is handled by the same host as the mirror, that
amounts to a single point of failure for a significant
proportion of the mirror network - ideally, we would also like
to have a GPG key for each tier 1 operator; and we do have one
for all of the current candidates