I run OpenBSD current using RAIC, a Redundant Array of Inexpensive Computers.
Basically two computers, each with two harddisks.
When I feel like installing a new snapshot I overwrite the oldest snapshot installation, with a new one. If things don't work out, I always can fall back on the previous working snapshot. Nearly always I use the binary packages.
For checking new snapshot and snapshot packages I wrote a set of simple shell scripts, which I documented in
Tracking OpenBSD snapshots with some simple sh scripts
For example the
pkg-differ utility compares the unique timestamps of the snapshot packages directory of the main Alberta site with the Redwood USA mirror.
Code:
$ pkg-differ redwood
Unique dates from Unique dates from
./NOW/latest_pkg: | ./NOW/latest_pkg-redwood:
=============================== ===============================
1 02-24 15:18 | 1 02-24 14:18
2 02-24 15:19 | 2 02-24 14:19
3 02-24 15:20 | 3 02-24 14:20
4 02-24 15:21 | 4 02-24 14:21
5 02-24 15:22 | 5 02-24 14:22
6 02-24 15:23 | 6 02-24 14:23
7 02-24 15:24 | 7 02-24 14:24
8 02-24 15:25 | 8 02-24 14:25
9 02-24 15:26 | 9 02-24 14:26
10 02-24 15:27 | 10 02-24 14:27
11 03-08 04:06 | 11 03-08 03:06
=============================== ===============================
Last entry: Last entry:
03-08 04:06 index.txt 516512 | 03-08 03:06 index.txt 516512
All files with last date: All files with last date:
"03-08 04:06" | "03-08 03:06"
=============================== ===============================
03-08 04:06 index.txt 516512 | 03-08 03:06 index.txt 516512
=============================== ===============================
From this you can rather safely conclude that the Redwood ftp site has completed mirroring the packages. There are moments where this is not the case. You can imagine the problems if you install a mix of new and old packages from an incomplete mirror