Expanding Your Mirror

Guide

Tutorial

So far, you’ve created a minimal mirror with a single architecture, suite, and section. In practice, you’ll often need to support multiple architectures, distribution releases, and repository sections. This section shows how to expand your mirror configuration.

Understanding the Dimensions

Repository mirrors can be expanded across three dimensions:

Architectures: CPU architectures (amd64, arm64, i386, etc.)
Suites: Distribution releases (noble, jammy, focal for Ubuntu; bookworm, trixie, sid for Debian)
Sections: Repository components (main, universe, restricted, multiverse for Ubuntu; main, contrib, non-free for Debian)

Each combination you add increases the mirror size and sync time.

Adding Multiple Architectures

Many environments support multiple CPU architectures. Add them to the architectures array:

dir = "/var/www/apt/"

[snapshot]
path = "/var/lib/mirrorctl/snapshots"
default_name_format = "2006-01-02T15-04-05Z"

[snapshot.prune]
keep_last = 5

[mirrors.ubuntu-noble]
url = "https://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/"
suites = ["noble"]
sections = ["main"]
architectures = ["amd64", "arm64"]  # Added arm64
publish_to_staging = true

This mirrors both x86-64 and ARM64 packages, supporting servers, desktops, and ARM-based systems.

Common architecture combinations:

["amd64"]: x86-64 only (most common)
["amd64", "arm64"]: Modern servers and ARM systems
["amd64", "i386"]: Include legacy 32-bit support
["amd64", "arm64", "armhf"]: Full ARM compatibility (32 and 64-bit)

Sync to download the arm64 packages:

sudo mirrorctl sync ubuntu-noble

The new architecture will be added:

INFO  Syncing mirror: ubuntu-noble
INFO  Downloading packages for arm64
INFO  Downloaded 8,450 new packages for arm64
INFO  Sync completed successfully

Adding Multiple Suites

Organizations often need to support multiple OS versions. Add multiple releases to the suites array:

[mirrors.ubuntu-noble]
url = "https://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/"
suites = ["noble", "jammy"]  # Ubuntu 24.04 and 22.04
sections = ["main"]
architectures = ["amd64", "arm64"]
publish_to_staging = true

This mirrors both Ubuntu 24.04 LTS (Noble) and 22.04 LTS (Jammy).

Common suite combinations:

Ubuntu LTS only: ["noble", "jammy", "focal"] (24.04, 22.04, 20.04)
Latest + LTS: ["plucky", "noble"] (current + latest LTS)
Debian stable + testing: ["bookworm", "trixie"]

After adding suites, sync to download them:

sudo mirrorctl sync ubuntu-noble

The sync will download packages for all suite/architecture/section combinations.

Disk space considerations

Each suite roughly doubles the mirror size:

1 suite (noble) × 1 section (main) × 1 arch (amd64): ~45 GB
2 suites (noble, jammy) × 1 section × 1 arch: ~90 GB
3 suites × 1 section × 1 arch: ~135 GB

Check space requirements before syncing:

sudo mirrorctl sync --dry-run

Adding Multiple Sections

Sections contain different categories of packages. Ubuntu uses:

main: Officially supported open source software
universe: Community-maintained open source software
restricted: Proprietary drivers and firmware
multiverse: Software with licensing restrictions

Add sections to mirror more packages:

[mirrors.ubuntu-noble]
url = "https://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/"
suites = ["noble", "jammy"]
sections = ["main", "universe"]  # Added universe
architectures = ["amd64", "arm64"]
publish_to_staging = true

This dramatically expands available packages:

main only: ~13,000 packages
main + universe: ~60,000+ packages

Adding universe significantly increases mirror size (often 3-4x). The example above would grow from ~90 GB to ~300+ GB.

For Debian, sections are:

main: Free software that meets Debian Free Software Guidelines
contrib: Free software that depends on non-free software
non-free: Software that doesn’t meet DFSG
non-free-firmware: Non-free firmware (Debian 12+)

[mirrors.debian-bookworm]
url = "https://deb.debian.org/debian/"
suites = ["bookworm"]
sections = ["main", "contrib", "non-free", "non-free-firmware"]
architectures = ["amd64"]

Including Source Packages

Source packages allow building software from source and auditing code:

[mirrors.ubuntu-noble]
url = "https://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/"
suites = ["noble"]
sections = ["main", "universe"]
architectures = ["amd64", "arm64"]
mirror_source = true  # Include source packages
publish_to_staging = true

Source packages add significant size (often 30-50% more) but are valuable for:

Building custom packages
Security audits
Compliance requirements
Offline development environments

Creating Multiple Mirror Configurations

You can mirror multiple repositories by defining multiple [mirrors.*] sections:

dir = "/var/www/apt/"

[snapshot]
path = "/var/lib/mirrorctl/snapshots"
default_name_format = "2006-01-02T15-04-05Z"

[snapshot.prune]
keep_last = 5

# Ubuntu mirror
[mirrors.ubuntu]
url = "https://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/"
suites = ["noble", "jammy"]
sections = ["main", "universe"]
architectures = ["amd64", "arm64"]
publish_to_staging = true

# Ubuntu security updates (separate repository)
[mirrors.ubuntu-security]
url = "https://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/"
suites = ["noble-security", "jammy-security"]
sections = ["main", "universe"]
architectures = ["amd64", "arm64"]
publish_to_staging = true

# Debian mirror
[mirrors.debian]
url = "https://deb.debian.org/debian/"
suites = ["bookworm", "trixie"]
sections = ["main", "contrib", "non-free"]
architectures = ["amd64"]
publish_to_staging = true

Sync all mirrors:

sudo mirrorctl sync

Or sync specific mirrors:

sudo mirrorctl sync ubuntu ubuntu-security

Partial Mirroring with Filters

For large repositories, you might not want everything. Use filters to reduce mirror size:

[mirrors.ubuntu-noble]
url = "https://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/"
suites = ["noble"]
sections = ["main", "universe"]
architectures = ["amd64"]

# Filter configuration
[mirrors.ubuntu-noble.filters]
keep_versions = 2  # Only keep the 2 most recent versions of each package
exclude_patterns = [
  ".*-dbg$",      # Exclude debug symbol packages
  ".*-doc$",      # Exclude documentation packages
  "linux-image-.*-generic-hwe.*"  # Exclude HWE kernels
]

Filters help manage disk space when mirroring large repositories.

Understanding keep_versions

Debian repositories keep multiple versions of packages. For example:

nginx_1.18.0-1_amd64.deb
nginx_1.20.1-1_amd64.deb
nginx_1.24.0-2_amd64.deb

Setting keep_versions = 2 keeps only the 2 most recent:

nginx_1.24.0-2_amd64.deb
nginx_1.20.1-1_amd64.deb

This is useful for development mirrors where you don’t need full history.

For production, use keep_versions = 0 (keep all versions) to ensure maximum compatibility.

Example: Production-Ready Configuration

Here’s a realistic production configuration supporting multiple environments:

dir = "/var/www/apt/"

[snapshot]
path = "/var/lib/mirrorctl/snapshots"
default_name_format = "2006-01-02T15-04-05Z"

[snapshot.prune]
keep_last = 7
keep_within = "30d"

# Primary Ubuntu mirror - main and universe
[mirrors.ubuntu]
url = "https://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/"
suites = ["noble", "jammy", "focal"]  # Support 3 LTS versions
sections = ["main", "universe"]
architectures = ["amd64", "arm64"]
publish_to_staging = true

# Ubuntu security updates - critical for production
[mirrors.ubuntu-security]
url = "https://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/"
suites = ["noble-security", "jammy-security", "focal-security"]
sections = ["main", "universe"]
architectures = ["amd64", "arm64"]
publish_to_staging = true

# Ubuntu updates repository
[mirrors.ubuntu-updates]
url = "https://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/"
suites = ["noble-updates", "jammy-updates", "focal-updates"]
sections = ["main", "universe"]
architectures = ["amd64", "arm64"]
publish_to_staging = true

Sync all:

sudo mirrorctl sync

Monitoring Disk Usage

As your mirror expands, monitor disk usage:

# Check total mirror size
du -sh /var/www/apt/*

# Check snapshot sizes
du -sh /var/lib/mirrorctl/snapshots/*/*

Use --dry-run before adding new suites or sections:

sudo mirrorctl sync --dry-run

What’s Next?

Now that your mirror is expanded, learn about Security Best Practices to ensure your mirror is verified and trustworthy.

Staging and Production Workflow Security Best Practices