What is PacCache?

A caching package proxy for Pacman (Arch Linux) (although it probably can be adjusted for any package manager).

Why?

If you have multiple Arch Linux machines on your network; using this image can help speed up downloads and reduce network consumption.

How does it work?

It's really just a fancy NGINX Config adapted from this.

Once properly setup, when the Container recieves a request for a package that isn't present locally, it downloads it from the primary mirror and saves the .pkg.tar.xz file to disk.

Any requests for .db or .sig files are always sent upstream to the mirror.

How do I use it?

docker run -d --name --paccache -p 8080:8080 -v /path/to/data/dir:/cache:rw -e okamidash/paccache

Environment Variables

• DNS_SERVER DNS Server to use for NGINX. You can change this to any DNS you want.

  default: 1.1.1.1

• SERVER_NAMEDomain Name/IP of Container. The default will respond to all requests.

  default: _

• PRIMARY_MIRROR Primary mirror to use for proxying requests. It is recommended to change this.

  default: https://mirrors.ukfast.co.uk/sites/archlinux.org

• BACKUP_MIRROR Backup mirror incase the primary mirror is down.

  default: https://archlinux.uk.mirror.allworldit.com/archlinux

Changing the Default Mirrors

It is recommended that you change the default mirrors to ones that are closer to you.

Currently the Docker Container only supports ipv4 http and https, no Rsync or ftp yet.

To change them, I would suggest using Reflector.

Something like reflector -p http -p https -l 50 --ipv4 -f 10 --sort rate will return the 10 fastest mirrors.

You will get a result like this.

Server = https://archlinux.uk.mirror.allworldit.com/archlinux/$repo/os/$arch
Server = https://archlinux.mailtunnel.eu/$repo/os/$arch
Server = https://mirror.orbit-os.com/archlinux/$repo/os/$arch
Server = https://pkg.adfinis-sygroup.ch/archlinux/$repo/os/$arch
Server = http://mirror.cyberbits.eu/archlinux/$repo/os/$arch

You only need to trim everything from $repo onwards; so https://archlinux.mailtunnel.eu/$repo/os/$arch will be https://archlinux.mailtunnel.eu/ and https://archlinux.uk.mirror.allworldit.com/archlinux/$repo/os/$arch becomes https://archlinux.uk.mirror.allworldit.com/archlinux/

Configuring /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist

Server = http://container_ip:container_port/$repo/os/$arch

Example using a container IP of 10.0.20.1, and -p 8080:8080

Server = http://10.0.20.1:8080/$repo/os/$arch

Need help?

If you need any help, feel free to email me

okami @ doubledash.org

This is my first Docker Image, and I had help from friends building it; so I can't promise i'll be helpful.

Thanks to

• Tim