Server to server: Push and Pull

Hi!

Diaspora regularly has problems in its federation. It uses a strict
"push-only" communication and it seems to lose articles from time to
time. In my tests between different servers I sometimes had a failure
rate of 5-10% lost messages.

Friendica on the other hand has included a daily pull of known contacts
for new articles. That means that articles don't get lost.

I would prefer having something like this in the new protocol as well.
That means a server should not only have to wait for an incoming push
but should be able to ask the known servers for new stuff.

Compare it to NNTP: http://www.tcpipguide.com/free/t_NNTPCommands-2.htm

There you have the IHAVE command. This could be compared to the push.
Additionally you have the NEWNEWS command where server A could ask
server B for stuff that is meant for server A. Important here is that
the list should include stuff as well that was expected to be already
transmitted. If there was a communication issue maybe the server B
thought the message was transmitted but server A hadn't got it completely.

There is another point why a combined way would be important especially
for friendica. We are having users who have their servers at home in a
non 24/7 environment. So maybe they switch their systems on at the
morning. Then their server should ask the other servers for the stuff of
the night.

Michael

Received on Thursday, 19 February 2015 23:42:03 UTC