4 ms·

One of my colocated servers has 60TB of space to spare and has a 10gbe unmetered uplink on the provider's IP-transit blend. It is easy to configure traffic sha

One of my colocated servers has 60TB of space to spare and has a 10gbe unmetered uplink on the provider's IP-transit blend. It is easy to configure traffic shaping on the box so that any unused upload bandwidth can be used without any impact to existing applications. I would be happy to seed NixOS torrents. There is an extension to torrents where files can be added to a torrent after a torrent is released that might make sense to look at.

toastal 3y ago
Makes you wonder why the whole protocol isn't Bittorrent with users seeding their builds to others.
- kortilla 3y ago
  Because the cloud movement in all of its hype stifled any investment in this area.
  - toastal 3y ago
    I believe it. I foresee a lot of holes being dug for projects buying into “the cloud” and “the edge”.
- ritchiey 3y ago
  The reason usually cited for why not BitTorrent for software packages is because it makes public what package versions you have and haven’t downloaded. This information could be useful to an attacker.
  - goodpoint 3y ago
    Hardly. Plus I'd rather have a random bunch of people get a small fraction of such information rather than a single company see everything.
  - __MatrixMan__ 3y ago
    Only if you're only seeding what you're using. It would be easy to add an obfuscation layer that seeds more.
- heavyset_go 3y ago
  At one point there were BitTorrent transports for Debian's apt.
  - teddyh 3y ago
    <https://wiki.debian.org/DebTorrent https://wiki.debian.org/DebTorrent>
- Jhsto 3y ago
  With NixOS the main problem is that a lot of local "packages" are configuration files with a lot of secrets. It is very easy to end up seeding your VPN and email passwords this way.
  - toastal 3y ago
    It's not required but it’s a best practices to not get your secrets into the nix store. There are solutions like env vars or Agenix.
    - Filligree 3y ago
      People do it anyway, and none of those solutions are as convenient.
      - toastal 3y ago
        Guess you should just check all your secrets into source control. That would be easier too.
      - pxc 3y ago
        The Nix store is world-readable. Storing plaintext secrets in the Nix store is absolutely insane and foolish. Who does this? Either don't store your secrets this way or don't use Nix. Please.
        ptman 3y ago
        There are unfortunately lots of software packages that don't offer a convenient passwordFile option in nix and the easiest way to get running is to specify a password in a way that ends up in the nix store.
        pxc 3y ago
        I knew of a few options like that, but didn't realize it was so widespread. I wish Nixpkgs had a policy against writing modules that way. This creates a policy nightmare for companies that might use Nix. Alternatively, we need ACLs for the Nix store, or at least some store paths, at a minimum. :-\
antoniojtorres 3y ago
I wonder if it’s possible to easily seed portions/parts of giant files. A little bit like another project mentioned here but just mediated with torrents and volunteers.

toastal 3y ago

Makes you wonder why the whole protocol isn't Bittorrent with users seeding their builds to others.

kortilla 3y ago
Because the cloud movement in all of its hype stifled any investment in this area.
- toastal 3y ago
  I believe it. I foresee a lot of holes being dug for projects buying into “the cloud” and “the edge”.
ritchiey 3y ago
The reason usually cited for why not BitTorrent for software packages is because it makes public what package versions you have and haven’t downloaded. This information could be useful to an attacker.
- goodpoint 3y ago
  Hardly. Plus I'd rather have a random bunch of people get a small fraction of such information rather than a single company see everything.
- __MatrixMan__ 3y ago
  Only if you're only seeding what you're using. It would be easy to add an obfuscation layer that seeds more.
heavyset_go 3y ago
At one point there were BitTorrent transports for Debian's apt.
- teddyh 3y ago
  <https://wiki.debian.org/DebTorrent https://wiki.debian.org/DebTorrent>
Jhsto 3y ago
With NixOS the main problem is that a lot of local "packages" are configuration files with a lot of secrets. It is very easy to end up seeding your VPN and email passwords this way.
- toastal 3y ago
  It's not required but it’s a best practices to not get your secrets into the nix store. There are solutions like env vars or Agenix.
  - Filligree 3y ago
    People do it anyway, and none of those solutions are as convenient.
    - toastal 3y ago
      Guess you should just check all your secrets into source control. That would be easier too.
    - pxc 3y ago
      The Nix store is world-readable. Storing plaintext secrets in the Nix store is absolutely insane and foolish. Who does this? Either don't store your secrets this way or don't use Nix. Please.
      - ptman 3y ago
        There are unfortunately lots of software packages that don't offer a convenient passwordFile option in nix and the easiest way to get running is to specify a password in a way that ends up in the nix store.
        pxc 3y ago
        I knew of a few options like that, but didn't realize it was so widespread. I wish Nixpkgs had a policy against writing modules that way. This creates a policy nightmare for companies that might use Nix. Alternatively, we need ACLs for the Nix store, or at least some store paths, at a minimum. :-\

antoniojtorres 3y ago

I wonder if it’s possible to easily seed portions/parts of giant files. A little bit like another project mentioned here but just mediated with torrents and volunteers.