Coral
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CoralCDN Overview
The Coral Content Distribution Network is made up of a network of servers that dynamically mirrors content on-demand. Coral was made with larger files in mind (although there is currently a size limit of 50mb at the time of this writing). The Coral system works by first downloading a copy of the file when requested (this request is made simply by creating a specific url). By adding .nyud.net:8090 to the end of a domain (for example, foo.com/foo.avi would become foo.com.nyud.net:8090/foo.avi), one of Coral's servers will download a copy of this file locally. Once the file has been completely transfered to the Coral server, future visits to foo.com.nyud.net:8090/foo.avi will serve the file from Coral instead of your host1.
Specific Uses of Coral
The Coral team has developed several ways to take advantage of their service.
Client/End-User
As an end-user/client, you can create Coral links for sites you don't run or use scripts that will automatically do this for you. This mainly comes in handy if you often find yourself visiting overloaded sites (such as those that are hit by the Slashdot Effect). Further information regarding client-based Coral use can be found at Using Coral - Clients.
Website Owners
The Coral Team provides several ways to "Coral-ize" all or some of your content. They range from the complex, requiring editing of Apache's base files, to the simpler method of adding a few lines to an .htaccess file. The following examples require mod_rewrite and mod_expires for Apache, but thankfully Dreamhost has these mods already installed and setup for us! For examples of how one might go about this proccess please check Using Coral - Servers and A Detailed E-mail from their mailing list.
Notes
1 There are several conditions that would cause this statement to be false, more information can be found at Coral's FAQ.
