Introduction

Metalink is a feature of download programs (browsers, FTP clients, P2P clients) that makes downloads more robust and error free.

Details

Metalinks are XML files that store information about downloads like mirrors, P2P info, checksums, and signatures.

Mirrors are included so downloads can failover if servers go down.

Checksums are used to verify downloads have been error free, or to correct errors.

An example Metalink: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <metalink version="3.0" xmlns="http://www.metalinker.org"> <files> <file name="example.ext"> <verification> <hash type="md5">example-md5-hash</hash> <hash type="sha1">example-sha1-hash</hash> <signature type="pgp"/> </verification> <resources> <url type="ftp" location="us" preference="90">ftp://ftp.example.com/example.ext</url> <url type="ftp" location="uk" preference="90">ftp://ftp.example.net/example.ext</url> <url type="http" location="us" preference="90">http://example.com/example.ext</url> <url type="http" location="de" preference="90">http://example.net/example.ext</url> <url type="bittorrent" preference="100">http://example.org/example.ext.torrent</url> <url type="rsync"/> <url type="magnet"/> <url type="ed2k"/> </resources> </file> </files> </metalink>