Setting up an Arch Linux mirror (2026)

Ever get annoyed by slow download speeds because mirrors near you are shit? And you’ve got a homeserver or VPS just sitting there?

Yeah, me too. So let’s set up your own Arch mirror.

Getting the mirror files

First thing you gonna do is make a directory for it:

mkdir -p /var/www/mirrors/archlinux/

Now you gonna want to grab a tier 1 mirror (since others suck) from https://archlinux.org/mirrors/tier/1/

Pick one and run this:

rsync -rlptH --safe-links --delete-delay --delay-updates rsync://your-mirror-here/archlinux/ /var/www/mirrors/archlinux/

This gonna take a while depending on your connection. Full mirror is like 70-80GB so grab coffee or something.

Cool! Now we got a copy of Arch. But you need to keep it synced right? Add this to your crontab (syncs every 6 hours):

0 */6 * * * rsync -rlptH --safe-links --delete-delay --delay-updates rsync://your-mirror-here/archlinux/ /var/www/mirrors/archlinux/

Nginx setup

Now for the webserver part. I use nginx so here’s my config. Make or edit /etc/nginx/sites-available/mirror.example.com:

server {
    listen 80;
    listen [::]:80;

    server_name mirror.example.com;

    root /var/www/mirrors;

    location / {
        try_files $uri $uri/ =404;
    }
}

server {
    listen 443 ssl;
    listen [::]:443 ssl;

    server_name mirror.example.com;

    root /var/www/mirrors;

    location / {
        try_files $uri $uri/ =404;
    }

    ssl_prefer_server_ciphers off;
    ssl_certificate /etc/letsencrypt/live/mirror.example.com/fullchain.pem;
    ssl_certificate_key /etc/letsencrypt/live/mirror.example.com/privkey.pem;
}

Enable the site:

ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/mirror.example.com /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/mirror.example.com

Test if config is right:

nginx -t

And reload nginx:

sudo systemctl reload nginx

Using your mirror

Done! Now just point your /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist to your mirror:

Server = https://mirror.example.com/archlinux/$repo/os/$arch

Enjoy your stay! See you later!