| The Linux Kernel Organization (kernel.org) is a California public welfare corporation founded in 2002 to freely distribute the Linux kernel and other open source software to the public. It accepts the management of the Linux Foundation, including technical, financial and personnel support, to maintain the operation of kernel.org. |
The Linux Kernel Organization is the official place for the release of the Linux kernel. Various versions of the Linux kernel can be found on its site, including the earliest 1.0 to the latest 4.x kernel. It provides a variety of ways to obtain the kernel, including:
- HTTP https://www.kernel.org/pub/
- GIT https://git.kernel.org/
- RSYNC rsync://rsync.kernel.org/pub/
And the FTP method, however, now they decided to stop the FTP method of downloading.
Initially, as early as 1998, the Linux kernel organization provided an FTP service-based kernel code acquisition method. In addition to downloading directly through FTP, it can also access FTP resources through HTTP protocol encapsulation, and even allows Mount their FTP resources as local partitions via NFS and SMB/CIFS.
However, it didn't take long for them to figure out that providing a public NFS/CIFS server didn't seem like a good idea, not only because both services performed poorly on slow networks, but they also had serious security risks of their own. As a result, support for NFS and SMB/CIFS was discontinued at the end of the year. Now, based on the following considerations:
- The FTP service requires additional configuration and adjustments on firewalls and load balancing devices
- The FTP server does not support caching and accelerators, which seriously affects performance
- Most related software lacks maintenance and updates
So, after 19 years of service, the Linux Kernel Organization has decided to completely kill the remaining FTP services on the FTP server. All FTP services of the Linux kernel organization will be shut down within this year. In order to reduce the impact, the shutdown is divided into two stages:
- ftp://ftp.kernel.org/ service will be discontinued on March 1, 2017
- ftp://mirrors.kernel.org/ service will be discontinued on December 1, 2017
However, if you have any questions, feel free to contact [email protected].