CTAN

Comprehensive TeX Archive Network ( CTAN ) is a very extensive worldwide archive of FTP servers with software and documentation around the TeX typesetting system, which is operated by the TeX user groups. The servers are mirrored to each other daily.

The user groups ( in German-speaking: DANTE ) distribute annually with the TeX Collection an almost complete server deduction to its members, which can be also available through the book trade.

Based on CTAN are available for the Perl programming language, a corresponding online archive called CPAN. Likewise, there are variants for the programming language Erlang ( the CEAN ) and a general knowledge base in the form of the Comprehensive Knowledge Archive Network ( CKAN ), run by the Open Knowledge Foundation. Similar repositories for the programming language S CRAN for R and S-Plus for CSAN.

History

Prior to founding CTAN there were a number of individuals, the TeX distributed publicly on the Internet, but there was no systematic collection of the software. Who was looking for a package for a particular purpose, had to mailing list and browse newsgroups to find in the discussions that were held there references to sources for files that he needed for his purposes. At a panel discussion organized Joachim Schrod on the EuroTeX meeting in 1991, the idea was to bring together these isolated collections. ( Schrod was interested in the topic because in the TeX community, he has been active since 1982 and at that time one of the biggest FTP server in Germany for operation. )

CTAN was founded in 1992 and was built by Rainer Schopf and Joachim Schrod in Germany, by Sebastian Rahtz in the UK and George Wade Green in the U.S.. The name comes from CTAN Green Wade.

In early 1993, the server were first synchronized with each other. The TeX Users Group provided the framework ready to make a "technical working group " to organize this work. Officially, the creation of CTAN in EuroTeX conference in Aston was announced in 1993.

The English website was placed from the start in the same place in Cambridge, while the American twice and four times the German server moved.

Location of CTAN U.S. under George Green Wade was the first Sam Huston State University. In 1995, the server was moved to the University of Massachusetts in Boston, where he was Karl Berry continued operation. In 1999, he moved into his home in the Saint Michael 's College in Colchester, Vermont. The server was in operation until the end of January 2011. The domain tug.ctan.org solves since January 2013 thanks to the assistance of Nelson Beebe on a server at the University of Utah.

The first German CTAN server was at the University of Heidelberg and was operated by Rainer scoop. He was transferred to the University of Mainz in 1999. In the next move to the University of Hamburg, the administration moved to Reinhard Zierke. Since 2005, the German CTAN mirror is operated in a commercial hoster because the traffic had become in the meantime so extensive that no university has been able to promote the server. Support of the German CTAN server is DANTE eV

Today CTAN is administrated by only three volunteers: Petra Ruebe - Pugliese, Rainer Schopf and Robin Fairbairns manage the two main nodes in Germany and at the University of Cambridge, said Rainer Schopf is represented in the case of prevention of Joachim Schrod. Jim Hefferon retired in January 2011 from the team. He ran until the end of 2012, the World Wide Web portal to CTAN which provided an alternative access to the packages and builds on the dataset of the TeX Catalogue by Graham Williams. The portal was redesigned in December 2012.

The traffic on the main node from CTAN - ie without the 75 mirror - amounted in May 2009 to six terabytes of downloads per month.

Services

CTAN provides the following services:

• In the upload service, new software packages that are uploaded by developers on CTAN, tested and installed. Where appropriate, detailed questions to be addressed by the developers. This activity prepares the creation of TeX TeX Live distribution, since only those packages included in the distribution, which are also available on CTAN.
• The CTAN - Mirror - master is used to update the data that is kept on the CTAN mirrors.
• The entries in the TeX Catalogue maintain. They were from the CTAN team significantly expanded (mainly by Robin Fairbairns ) for several years and must be continuously updated. For newly added packages, new entries are created.
• The CTAN site provides access to the stock from CTAN as well as the metadata about the individual software packages via a graphical user interface.
• About a mailing list updates on CTAN will be announced. The list can also be read via an RSS feed.
• For developers, there is an internal SVN repository.

Installation of packages

To install CTAN holds willing to adhere to the format of the TeX Directory Structure (TDS ), so that all files when unpacking in the root directory of the texmf tree of the local TeX installation automatically in the directory / install packages in ZIP format the right place to be stored. These packages have the file extension tds.zip. In addition, feature modern TeX distributions - TeX Live, MiKTeX - its own package manager, which updates its own import, which are also distributed on CTAN. In addition, the packages are on CTAN ago in a structure that can scan with your own FTP client or using the web browser of the user. For a targeted search, there is the web interface and the TeX Catalogue, where the packets are also listed according to the intended use.