dfQ Release Candidate 1 now available

[m0ti]

First off, if the one uploader is getting hit hard, probably the best thing to do is to increase the amount of time between uploads to the server from the clients. In any case, there is a fixed overhead to the transfer.

The server should be able to handle a large amount of clients. I've never tested how many simultaneous clients it can support but it should be fairly large (guess I'll have to add in a thread pool to the next version for people with very large farms). And I might have to add in a server-bridge or something (clients can upload to it, it uploads to another server), though that should only be for very very large networks. In its current form, it should be able to support a fairly large number of clients. If a client can't contact the server the work will remain at the client location and it'll try again the next time an upload is scheduled.

Overall, the whole system should be robust enough that there shouldn't be many problems. The uploader is the largest potential bottleneck in the system IMO, so extending the time between uploads from the client to the server is the best way to go.

I'll update the uploader too for the next version, so that you can set it up for multiple concurrent uploads to DF. I'll set a max of, say, 20 DF directories under Uploader. It'll use these to upload.

Ok, planned new features for next release (v1 rc2):

1) Stats is getting pushed back a bit. Stats is more of a convenience than a feature resulting in more work getting pushed out. The only thing that'll make it in is a listing of IP's / host names and a timestamp for when their last peice of work has has been received. This'll most likely just be a text file on the server.

2) Service installation

3) Support of multiple handles

4) Support of SMP on the client

5) Support of multiple servers for client and uploader

6) Multiple concurrent uploads from the uploader.

7) More robust server.

8) Improved (more reliable) reporting and log size kept down.

rc3 will see stats in some form, and likely some bug fixes. rc4 will be an absolute feature freeze, and from there it will be any bug fixes, and then v1 will be officially ready.