Mirror Mirror On The Wall

Running a private Ubuntu Mirror

It is possible to set up a local server to keep a synchronized copy of all the Ubuntu packages, allowing later installs of packages for any local machine even in the absence of an internet connection.

To do this a script called apt-mirror can be run on the server.

crontab

0 1 * * * /usr/local/bin/apt-mirror

The location of the mirror is specified in apt-mirror.conf

/etc/apt/apt-mirror.conf

set mirror_path /disk/ftp/Mirror
set cleanup_freq daily
set mirror_verbose yes

The origin servers are specified in mirror.list. It is possible to choose which architectures and Ubuntu releases to fetch as well as whether to fetch just the binary packages or also the sources.

/etc/apt/mirror.list

...

deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu noble main restricted universe multiverse
deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu noble-security main restricted universe multiverse
deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu noble-updates main restricted universe multiverse
deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu noble-backports main restricted universe multiverse

deb-i386 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu noble main restricted universe multiverse
deb-i386 http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu noble-security main restricted universe multiverse
deb-i386 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu noble-updates main restricted universe multiverse
deb-i386 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu noble-backports main restricted universe multiverse

#deb-src http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu noble main restricted universe multiverse
#deb-src http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu noble-security main restricted universe multiverse
#deb-src http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu noble-updates main restricted universe multiverse
#deb-src http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu noble-backports main restricted universe multiverse

clean http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu

The mirrored packages could be served up to local machines in a number of ways, I am using vsftpd to serve the files via FTP.

/etc/vsftp.conf

anonymous_enable=YES
anon_upload_enable=YES
anon_mkdir_write_enable=YES
dirmessage_enable=YES
xferlog_enable=YES
connect_from_port_20=YES
listen=YES
pam_service_name=vsftpd
seccomp_sandbox=NO
isolate_network=NO
anon_root=/disk/ftp/
no_anon_password=YES
hide_ids=YES
pasv_min_port=40000
pasv_max_port=50000
write_enable=YES

On local machines, the mirror on the server can then be specified as the source for apt to use to retrieve packages.

/etc/apt/sources.list.d/ubuntu.sources

...

Types: deb
URIs: ftp://server/Mirror/mirror/archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu
Suites: noble noble-updates noble-backports
Components: main universe restricted multiverse
Signed-By: /usr/share/keyrings/ubuntu-archive-keyring.gpg

## Ubuntu security updates. Aside from URIs and Suites,
## this should mirror your choices in the previous section.
Types: deb
URIs: ftp://server/Mirror/mirror/security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu
Suites: noble-security
Components: main universe restricted multiverse
Signed-By: /usr/share/keyrings/ubuntu-archive-keyring.gpg

This file was updated at 2025-03-01 19:15:47