Add Repository Mirrors


Your competitor (DO) currently mirrors a large number of Linux repositories at This makes updating and installing packages in their VPS VMs insanely fast and saves them bandwidth as well as increasing their image with the development community. I believe that Vultr should copy this great practice and set their own mirrors as default on new VPS installations for all pre-built images (Debian, Ubuntu, CentOS, FreeBSD). The update processes would be much faster at over 20MB/s since it's in the same network, it would reduce out of network bandwidth, and it would make customers more satisfied with the quality of their service.


  • I agree, it would be a good idea but it would probably end up not being updated too often like has happened with DO. I know of repositories on DO that haven't been updated in weeks so kinda against it happening too
  • As long as they set up a bunch of rsync cron jobs for every repo they host and have it run say... twice a day, it'll be fine.
  • @dylantaylor92 or twice an hour ;)
  • Per-location mirrors are in the works, but we've run into some issues that are preventing them from functioning. We're still working on this, but there's no definite ETA right now.
  • @dylantaylor92 Didn't think about that tbh. Would resolve that problem well
  • What OS will be the mirrors for?
  • I would imagine for whatever preset choosable installations when spinning up an instance. That way they can assign it pre-deployment.
  • edited November 2014
    With regard to Debian (releases, derivatives, and some other Linux distributions)

    - why not install (Vultr) apt-cacher-ng and publish a link so we (users) can simply create /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/90proxy with the following content(??):-
    Aquire::http { Proxy "http://$SomeVultrAddress:3142"; };
    That way we can quickly update our packages without touching our bandwidth allowance, whilst Vultr expends minimum resources.
    i.e. apt-cacher-ng acts as a proxy - the first user to request a package causes that package to be "cached" at the local apt-cacher-ng installation (at the same speed as direct access to remote mirrors), subsequent "requesters" get previously downloaded packages from apt-cacher-ng packages at LAN speed.

    NOTE: untested IMNSHO I'd recommend a mirror closest to Vultr - but that's tricky given Vultr's various locations - (autossh might be a work-around)
    apt-cacher-ng treats the same packages from different mirrors differently - so it might be more efficient to recommend Debian "users" populate /etc/apt/sources.list{,.d/*} with e.g.:-
    deb stable main

    Disclaimer: just a "quick thought"

    NOTES: apt-cacher-ng will deal with Debian and it's various releases, Debian derivatives, Gentoo and others.
    apt-cacher-ng will work with auto-updates

    auto-updates may not be fool-proof i.e. if you mix repostitories, even with pinning you may find packages are removed that with the benefit of hind-sight you wish you'd put on hold (maybe better to cron/crontab/hcron/anacron yourself and subscribe to debian-security-announce??)

    Kind regards
  • +10 to this. It is just painful to watch an US Ubuntu server updating from which is located in Keeton :(
  • I'm surprised ubuntu don't use DNS based CDNs, like does for FreeBSD.

    Still, have you tried using one of their local mirrors?
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