Reflector

Related articles

• Mirrors
• Pacman

Reflector is a script which can retrieve the latest mirror list from the MirrorStatus page, filter the most up-to-date mirrors, sort them by speed and overwrite the file /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist.

Installation

Install the reflector package.

Usage

Warning:

• In the following examples, /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist will be overwritten. Make a backup before proceeding.
• Make sure the resulting /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist does not contain entries that you consider untrustworthy before syncing or updating with Pacman.

To see all of the available commands, run the following command:

# reflector --help

Examples

Verbosely rate and sort the five most recently synchronized mirrors by download speed, and overwrite the file /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist:

# reflector --verbose --latest 5 --sort rate --save /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist

Select the 200 most recently synchronized HTTP or HTTPS mirrors, sort them by download speed, and overwrite the file /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist:

# reflector --latest 200 --protocol http --protocol https --sort rate --save /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist

Select the HTTPS mirrors synchronized within the last 12 hours and located in either France or Germany, sort them by download speed, and overwrite the file /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist:

# reflector --country France --country Germany --age 12 --protocol https --sort rate --save /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist

Automation

Pacman hook

You can also create a pacman hook that will run reflector and remove the .pacnew file created every time pacman-mirrorlist gets an upgrade.

/etc/pacman.d/hooks/mirrorupgrade.hook

[Trigger]
Operation = Upgrade
Type = Package
Target = pacman-mirrorlist

[Action]
Description = Updating pacman-mirrorlist with reflector and removing pacnew...
When = PostTransaction
Depends = reflector
Exec = /bin/sh -c "reflector --country 'United States' --latest 200 --age 24 --sort rate --save /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist; rm -f /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist.pacnew"

Make sure to substitute in your desired arguments for reflector.

Systemd service

This is an example of service unit that waits for the network to be up and online before running reflector:

/etc/systemd/system/reflector.service

[Unit]
Description=Pacman mirrorlist update
Wants=network-online.target
After=network-online.target

[Service]
Type=oneshot
ExecStart=/usr/bin/reflector --protocol https --latest 30 --number 20 --sort rate --save /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist

[Install]
RequiredBy=multi-user.target

starting reflector.service will update the mirrorlist. To update the mirrorlist every time the computer boots, enable the service.

Note: For more information on the implementation of the network dependency, see Systemd#Running services after the network is up.

Systemd timer

If you want to run reflector.service on a weekly basis, create an associated .timer:

/etc/systemd/system/reflector.timer

[Unit]
Description=Run reflector weekly

[Timer]
OnCalendar=Mon *-*-* 7:00:00
RandomizedDelaySec=15h
Persistent=true

[Install]
WantedBy=timers.target

And then just start the reflector.timer.

Reflector-timer package

Install reflector-timer^AUR to run reflector weekly.

The default configuration, which can be edited to fit one's needs, is:

/usr/share/reflector-timer/reflector.conf

AGE=6
COUNTRY=Germany
LATEST=30
NUMBER=20
SORT=rate
### remove an entry if you don't want it as available protocol
PROTOCOL1='-p http'
PROTOCOL2='-p https'
PROTOCOL3='-p ftp'
PROTOCOL4='-p rsync'

Be sure to enable reflector.timer.

Cron task

To update the mirrorlist daily, consider the following:

/etc/cron.daily/mirrorlist

#!/bin/bash

# Get the country thing
/usr/bin/reflector -c "India" -p http --sort rate > /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist

# Work through the alternatives
/usr/bin/reflector -p http  --latest 20 -p https -p ftp --sort rate >> /etc/pac
man.d/mirrorlist