Distage is a decentralized, distfile sharing tool for Gentoo Linux. It allows one to download package files from machines connected to a Local Area Network instead of a cache server or Gentoo Mirror. Distage is aimed at small networks (starting at two machines) where a centralized system is too expensive or inconvenient.
The system is built on top of a generic file location and sharing system that is based on a pure peer-to-peer architecture. Quality of service degrades gracefully as nodes become unavailable and nodes do not need to discover each other due to network traffic being restricted by functional necessity. In other words, nodes don't know about each other and don't whisper to each other in the background.
While it was built to cater for a particular use on Gentoo, Distage is built to be generic and the only part that actually ties it to Gentoo is a single script that orchestrates the system. The actual file sharing components, which include the broker, query tool and HTTP server, can be used for some other purpose and do not depend on packages specific to Gentoo Linux. Documentation of the protocol and broker will be made available soon.
Instructions for installing and using Distage can be found in the INSTALL and README files (provided with the source distribution) respectively.
Note to Gentoo users: An ebuild is now available and may be downloaded from the project site.
Distage is in active development and has just reached its first release version. Visit the project site to download the latest source.
2007-01-13: Stable release (version 1.0.0). After quite some time spent on testing and debugging, Distage is stable for production use. See the change log for more details.
2006-04-04: Initial release (version 0.9.1). Bug reports and comments welcome.
Copyright 2007 Ronald Klazar <rk@0x0F.net>. All rights reserved.