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 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 a 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. For example:

/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'

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/pacman.d/mirrorlist