Ubuntu/Debian mirror synchronisation with intelligent deduplication using hardlinks.

Features

• Downloads from upstream and hardlinks duplicate files (same SHA256 hash) to save bandwidth and disk space
• Supports multiple mirrors with global deduplication across all mirrors
• Uses curl for duplicate files, rsync for unique files and metadata
• Configurable via YAML files
• Systemd timer support for automated synchronisation

Installation

Option 1: Debian/Ubuntu Package (Recommended)

Download the latest .deb package from GitHub Releases:

wget https://github.com/munger/mirror-dedupe/releases/download/v0.2.0/mirror-dedupe_0.2.0-1_all.deb
sudo dpkg -i mirror-dedupe_0.2.0-1_all.deb

This includes systemd integration, man pages, and proper package management.

Option 2: PyPI (All Linux Distributions)

pip install mirror-dedupe

Then install systemd files manually:

sudo ./install.sh --pip

Option 3: From Source

git clone https://github.com/munger/mirror-dedupe.git
cd mirror-dedupe
sudo ./install.sh

Configuration

Configuration files are located in /etc/mirror-dedupe/:

• mirror-dedupe.conf - Global settings
• repos-available/ - Available repository configurations
• repos-enabled/ - Enabled repositories (symlinks to repos-available)

Adding a Repository

Use the scanner to auto-generate configuration for a repository, for example:

mirror-dedupe-scan --name grafana --dest grafana https://apt.grafana.com

See config/repos-available/README.md for the full mirror-dedupe-scan reference and ready-made commands for all of the packaged example repositories.

Then test and enable it using the CLI:

# Test that the upstream and GPG key URL (if configured) are reachable
mirror-dedupe --test grafana

# If the test looks good, activate the repository
mirror-dedupe --activate grafana

If you prefer, you can still enable it manually with a symlink:

cd /etc/mirror-dedupe/repos-enabled
ln -s ../repos-available/grafana.conf .

Advanced: Alternative config directories

By default, both tools use /etc/mirror-dedupe. You can override this with --config, e.g. for testing or multiple instances:

mirror-dedupe --config /tmp/mirror-test --test grafana

Pre-configured Repositories

The package includes pre-configured repositories:

• ubuntu - Ubuntu main archive (noble)
• ubuntu-ports - Ubuntu ports archive (noble)
• ubuntu-cloud - Ubuntu Cloud Archive (selected OpenStack tracks on noble)
• debian - Debian stable archive (bookworm)
• docker - Docker packages for Ubuntu noble
• grafana - Grafana APT repository
• influxdb - InfluxData repository for Debian/Ubuntu
• kubernetes - Kubernetes packages from apt.kubernetes.io
• nginx - Official NGINX packages for Ubuntu
• nodesource-node22 - Node.js 22.x LTS from NodeSource
• postgresql - PostgreSQL APT repository (noble-pgdg)

Usage

# Sync all mirrors
mirror-dedupe

# Sync specific mirror
mirror-dedupe --mirror ubuntu

# Dry run
mirror-dedupe --dry-run

# Dedupe only (no sync)
mirror-dedupe --dedupe-only

Systemd Integration

If installed via Debian package, systemd is already configured. Otherwise:

sudo systemctl enable --now mirror-dedupe.timer
sudo systemctl status mirror-dedupe.timer

View logs:

journalctl -u mirror-dedupe.service

Nginx Configuration

See nginx/mirror.conf for an example nginx configuration.

License

MIT License - see LICENSE file for details.

Author

Tim Hosking tim@mungerware.com

https://github.com/munger/mirror-dedupe