On Tue, Apr 30, 2013 at 12:14 PM, Rebroad (sourceforge) <rebroad+sourceforge....@gmail.com> wrote: > As part of a roadmap for block downloading, I think this may be a good time > to look into providing an HTTP/HTTPS protocol for block downloading - this > would also allow web proxies to cache blocks and thus make it more > accessible, as well as cater for resumeable downloads.
Speaking generally, I've always been a supporter of finding new and creative ways to store and transmit blocks. The more diversity, the less likely bitcoin can be shut down worldwide. HTTP is fine, but you run into many issues with large files. You would need a very well defined HTTP-retrievable layout, with proper HTTP headers along the entire path, if you want web caches to function properly. You need HTTP byte range support, HTTP 1.1 keep-alives, and other features for resuming large, interrupted downloads. The format currently used by bitcoind would be just fine -- blocks/blkNNNN.dat for raw data, size-limited well below 1GB. Just need to add a small metadata download, and serve the raw block files. -- Jeff Garzik exMULTI, Inc. jgar...@exmulti.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Introducing AppDynamics Lite, a free troubleshooting tool for Java/.NET Get 100% visibility into your production application - at no cost. Code-level diagnostics for performance bottlenecks with <2% overhead Download for free and get started troubleshooting in minutes. http://p.sf.net/sfu/appdyn_d2d_ap1 _______________________________________________ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
