Creating A Local Mirror For Linux Mint 13

If your like me and either have to administer or install many linux mint 13 installs with a slow internet connection you can benefit from having a local repository mirror. This will keep all bandwidth on your local LAN and keep yout internet pip free for other things

Below is how to create a mirror for linux mint long term support version 13. I have shown how to mirror all the repositories needed except the updates. Doing a local repository for updates I find hard to keep up to date and for how much data you will draw from it, its not worth the headache

Install Required Software

sudo apt-get install apt-mirror apache2

Make A Folder To Keep Your Repo

I'll be using /repo for my purposes but replace it with whatever you want

mkdir /repo

Edit Apt-Mirrors Configuration File

sudo gedit /etc/apt/mirror.list

Change...

# set base_path /var/spool/apt-mirror

To..

set base_path /repo

Change...

set nthreads 20

To...(So the mirroring process doesnt hog your whole internet connection)

set nthreads 10

And at the bottom of the file add in the following entries

deb-i386 http://packages.linuxmint.com/ maya main upstream import deb-amd64 http://packages.linuxmint.com/ maya main upstream import deb-i386 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise main restricted universe multiverse deb-amd64 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise main restricted universe multiverse deb-i386 http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise-security main restricted universe multiverse deb-amd64 http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise-security main restricted universe multiverse deb-i386 http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu/ precise partner deb-amd64 http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu/ precise partner

Start The Mirroring Process

The following command will download all files from the repository servers. This will take some time and will take approximately 125GB of space, so make sure you have the room and a large cup of coffee

sudo apt-mirror /etc/apt/mirror.list

Configure Apache

Once everything has downloaded we can go ahead and finish setting up apache to serve up the files

sudo ln -s /repo/mirror/packages.linuxmint.com/ /var/www/packages_linuxmint_com sudo ln -s /repo/mirror/archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ /var/www/ubuntu_precise sudo ln -s /repo/mirror/security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ /var/www/security_ubuntu_com sudo ln -s /repo/mirror/archive.canonical.com/ubuntu/ /var/www/archive_canonical_com

Some systems have modsecurity enabled by default, in which case you should add the following to the bottom of the file /etc/modsecurity/modsecurity_crs_10_setup.conf

SecRule REQUEST_URI "/packages_linuxmint_com" nolog,allow SecRule REQUEST_URI "/ubuntu_precise" nolog,allow SecRule REQUEST_URI "/security_ubuntu_com" nolog,allow SecRule REQUEST_URI "/archive_canonical_com" nolog,allow

Keeping Your Repository Up To Date

Files change in the master repository all the time, to make sure your local repository keeps up with the changes theres a crontab entry to keep everything updated once a day

sudo gedit /etc/cron.d/apt-mirror

Look for the following line in the file and remove the "#" from the start of the line

#0 4 * * * apt-mirror /usr/bin/apt-mirror > /var/spool/apt-mirror/var/cron.log

Cleaning Up Your Repository

Cleaning up your repository from now and then will help save space but this has to be run manually

sudo /repo/var/clean.sh

Switching Your Clients To Use Local Repository

Now you have your repository all set up you switch all your clients over to using it. On each client to use the new local repository server do the following:

sudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list

For each entry in the file You need to change the primary domain name to your local repository IP address / domain name. Until you know everything is working its best to copy each line and comment one of them out using "#" at the start of the line. That way its easy to revert back to your origional configuration.

For example my origional configuration was....

deb http://packages.linuxmint.com/ maya main upstream import deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise main restricted universe multiverse deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise-updates main restricted universe multiverse deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise-security main restricted universe multiverse deb http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu/ precise partner

Now my configuration is....replace X.X.X.X with your server IP / Domain Name

#deb http://packages.linuxmint.com/ maya main upstream import deb http://X.X.X.X/packages_linuxmint_com maya main upstream import #deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise main restricted universe multiverse deb http://X.X.X.X/ubuntu_precise precise main restricted universe multiverse deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise-updates main restricted universe multiverse #deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise-security main restricted universe multiverse deb http://X.X.X.X/security_ubuntu_com/ precise-security main restricted universe multiverse #deb http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu/ precise partner deb http://X.X.X.X/archive_canonical_com/ precise partner

Update Your Repository List

The only other step is to run an update which will get the file listings from your server. If your run into any issues double check you have followed the steps above correctly.

sudo apt-get update