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author | 2015-03-03 18:41:09 -0400 | |
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committer | 2015-03-03 18:41:09 -0400 | |
commit | 734a811e93656e2972cdc382b1f275b4a53cfb50 (patch) | |
tree | 47d66fe73dde75d61e629d30cf632e474e1f61e1 | |
parent | 3e0414232fa85bc02c6033f8cf3b328d56d10ab8 (diff) |
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-rw-r--r-- | doc/design/iabackup.mdwn | 197 |
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diff --git a/doc/design/iabackup.mdwn b/doc/design/iabackup.mdwn new file mode 100644 index 000000000..4b11234c6 --- /dev/null +++ b/doc/design/iabackup.mdwn @@ -0,0 +1,197 @@ +This is a fairly detailed design proposal for using git-annex to build +<http://archiveteam.org/index.php?title=INTERNETARCHIVE.BAK> + +## sharding to scale + +The IA contains some 24 million Items. + +git repositories do not scale well past the 1-10 million file +range, and very badly above that. Storing individual IA Items +would strain git's scalability badly. + +Solution: Create multiple git repositories, and split the Items amoung +them. + +* Needs a map from an Item to its repository. (Could be stored in a + database, or whatever.) + +* If each git repository holds 10 thousand items, that's 2400 repositories, + which is not an unmanagable number. (For comparison, git.debian.org + has 18500 repositories.) + +* The IA is ~20 Petabytes large. Each shard would thus be around 8 + Terabytes. (However, Items sizes will vary a lot, so there's the + potential to get a shard that's unusually small or large. This could be + dealt with when assigning Items to the shards, to balance sizes out.) + +* The Items in each shard are then distributed out to the clients who + have been assigned that shard. Clients will store varying amounts of + data, but probably under 1 Terabyte per client. And we want redundancy + (LOCKSS) -- say at least 3 copies. So, estimate around 25-100 clients need + to be assigned to each shard to get it backed up. + +* Add new shards as the IA continues to grow. + +## the IA git repository + +We're building a pyramid of git-annex repositories, and at the tip +of this is a single git repository, which represents the entire Internet +Archive. + +This IA git repository contains no files. But, git-annex in each of the +~2400 shards knows about it, and by default every Item in every shard +is recorded as having a copy present in the IA git repository. + +If the IA lost an Item somehow, this would be reflected by updating +the git-annex location tracking to say the IA git repository no longer +contains the item. + +Creating this repository is simple: + + git init ia.git + cd ia.git + git annex init "The Internet Archive" + git annex trust . + +## creating the shards + +Each shard starts as a clone of the IA git repository. + +Items are added to the shard, either all at once, or perhaps on-demand. + +To add an Item to the shard: + +1. Create a (reproducible checksum) tarball of all the files in the Item + (probably excluding "derived" files). + +2. Checksum the tarball and derive a git-annex key, and add it to the git + repository. + + The symlink can have a name corresponding to the Item name. + (Eg "LauraPoitrasCitizenfour.tar" for + <https://archive.org/details/LauraPoitrasCitizenfour>) + + The easy way is to write the tarball to disk in the shard's git repo, + and "git annex add", but it's also possible to do this without ever + storing the tarball on disk. + +4. Update git-annex location tracking to indicate that this item + is present in the Internet Archive. + + If $iauuid is the UUID of the IA git repository, the command + is: `setpresentkey $key $iauuid 1` (This command needs git-annex + 5.20141231) + +5. git commit + +## adding a client + +When a client registers to participate: + +1. Generate a UUID, which is assigned to this client, and send it to the + client, and assign that UUID to a particular shard. +2. Send the client an appropriate auth token (eg, a locked down ssh private + key) to let them access the origin repository. +3. Client clones its assigned shard git repository, + runs `git annex init reinit $UUID`, and enables direct mode. + +Note that a client could be assigned to multiple shards, rather than just +one. Probably good to keep a pool of empty shards that have clients waiting +for new Items to be added. + +## distributing Items + +1. Client runs `git annex sync --content`, which downloads as many + Items from the IA as will fit in their disk's free space + (leaving some conigurable amount free in reserve by configuring + annex.diskreserve) +2. Note that [[numcopies]] and [[preferred_content]] settings can be + used to make clients only want to download an Item if it's not yet + reached the desired number of copies. Lots of flexability here in + git-annex. +3. git-annex will push back to the server an updated git-annex branch, + which will record when it has successfully stored an Item. + +## bad actors + +Clients can misbehave in probably many ways. The best defense for many +misbehaviors is to distribute Items to enough different clients that we can +trust some of them. + +The main git-annex specific misbehavior is that a client could try to push +garbage information back to the origin repository on the server. + +To guard against this, the server will reject all pushes of branches other +than the git-annex branch, which is the only one clients need to modify. + +Check pushes of the git-annex branch. There are only a few files that +clients can legitimately modify, and the modifications will always involve +that client's UUID, not some other client's UUID. Reject anything shady. + +These checks can be done in a git `update` hook. + +## verification + +We want a lightweight verification process, to verify that a client still +has the data. This can be done using `git annex fsck`, which can be +configured to eg, check each file only once per month. + +git-annex will need a modification here. Currently, a successful fsck +does not leave any trace in the git-annex branch that it happened. But +we want the server to track when a client is not fscking (the user probably +dropped out). + +The modification is simple; just have a successful fsck +update the timestamp in the fscked file's location log. +It will probably take just a few hours to code. + +With that change, the server can check for files that not enough clients +have verified they have recently, and distribute them to more clients. + +Note that bad actors can lie about this verification; it's not a proof they +still have the file. But, a bad actor could prove they have a file, and +refuse to give it back if the IA needed to restore the backup, too. + +## fire drill + +If we really want to test how well the system is working, we need a fire +drill. + +1. Pick some Items that we'll assume the IA has lost in some disaster. +2. Look up the shard the Item belongs to. +3. Get the git-annex key of the Item, and tell git-annex it's been + lost from the IA, by running in its shard: `setpresentkey $key $iauuid 0` +4. The next time a client runs `git annex sync --content`, it will notice + that the IA repo doesn't have the Item anymore. The client will then + send the Item back to the origin repo. +5. To guard against bad actors, that restored Item should be checked with + `git annex fsck`. If its checksum is good, it can be re-injected back + into the IA. (Or, the fire drill was successful.) + +## other optional nice stuff + +The user running a client can delete some or all of their files at any +time, to free up disk space. The next time `git-annex sync` runs on the client, +it'll notice and let the server know, and other clients will then take +over storing it. (Or if the git-annex assistant is run on the client, +it would inform the server immediately.) + +The user is also free to move Items around (within the git repository +directory), unpack Items to examine their contents, etc. This doesn't +affect anyone else. + +Offline storage is supported. As long as the user can spin it up from time +to time to run `git annex fsck`. + +More advanced users might have multiple repositories on different disks. +Each has their own UUID, and they could move Items around between them as +desired; this would be communicated back to the origin repository +automatically. + +Shards could have themes, and users could request to be part of the +shard that includes Software, or Grateful Dead, etc. This might encourage +users to devote more resources. + +The contents of Items sometimes changes. +This can be reflected by updating an Item's file in the git repository. +Clients will then download the new version of the Item. |