To be able to create a mirror people can rely on, you need to have all the files and you need them at the right moment. 'File not found'-errors cause a lot of issues and annoyances for users. This page provides you with scripts to sync from other mirrors and prevent 404's.

Archive mirrors

For archive mirrors, it is very important not to delete packages before the Packages.gz-files (which hold information about the packages available) are updated. Therefor, you need a 'Two stage sync'. This means that you download new packages first, and new Packages.gz after that. After you've downloaded the Packages.gz files, it's safe to delete old packages.

The script

#/bin/dash

fatal() {
  echo "$1"
  exit 1
}

warn() {
  echo "$1"
}

# Find a source mirror near you which supports rsync on
# https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+archivemirrors
# rsync://<iso-country-code>.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu should always work
RSYNCSOURCE=rsync://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu

# Define where you want the mirror-data to be on your mirror
BASEDIR=/var/www/ubuntuarchive/

if [ ! -d ${BASEDIR} ]; then
  warn "${BASEDIR} does not exist yet, trying to create it..."
  mkdir -p ${BASEDIR} || fatal "Creation of ${BASEDIR} failed."
fi

rsync --recursive --times --links --hard-links \
  --stats \
  --exclude "Packages*" --exclude "Sources*" \
  --exclude "Release*" \
  ${RSYNCSOURCE} ${BASEDIR} || fatal "First stage of sync failed."

rsync --recursive --times --links --hard-links \
  --stats --delete --delete-after \
  ${RSYNCSOURCE} ${BASEDIR} || fatal "Second stage of sync failed."

Releases mirrors

For Releases mirrors, stuff is a little less complicated. There are no dependencies between files, so you can just rsync away.

The script

#/bin/dash

fatal() {
  echo "$1"
  exit 1
}

warn() {
  echo "$1"
}

# Find a source mirror near you which supports rsync on
# https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+cdmirrors
# rsync://<iso-country-code>.releases.ubuntu.com/releases should always work
RSYNCSOURCE=rsync://releases.ubuntu.com/releases

# Define where you want the mirror-data to be on your mirror
BASEDIR=/var/www/ubuntureleases/

if [ ! -d ${BASEDIR} ]; then
  warn "${BASEDIR} does not exist yet, trying to create it..."
  mkdir -p ${BASEDIR} || fatal "Creation of ${BASEDIR} failed."
fi

rsync --recursive --times --links --hard-links \
  --stats \
  ${RSYNCSOURCE} ${BASEDIR} || fatal "Failed to rsync from ${RSYNCSOURCE}."