mirrorselect
The mirrorselect program provides a nice interface to set the GENTOO_MIRRORS variable and the Gentoo rsync mirror.
Installation
Emerge
Install app-portage/mirrorselect:
root #emerge --ask app-portage/mirrorselectUsage
Select the Gentoo source mirror(s)
Interactively find Gentoo source mirrors (and set or update the GENTOO_MIRRORS variable):
root #mirrorselect -i* Modifying /etc/portage/make.conf with new mirrors...
Reading make.conf
Moving to /etc/portage/make.conf.backup
Writing new /etc/portage/make.conf
* Done.
Notice that a backup copy of /etc/portage/make.conf will be created by mirrorselect before updating it.
Users can also specify a country (United States of America, for example):
root #mirrorselect -i -c USAThe following command finds the 3 fastest servers by downloading 100K from each; it will use all available mirrors in the list:
root #mirrorselect -s3 -b10 -DOptions
Please consider using one of these additional options to limit the available mirrors in the list it tests.
user $mirrorselect --helpUsage: mirrorselect [options]
examples:
automatic:
# mirrorselect -s5
# mirrorselect -s3 -b10 -o >> /mnt/gentoo/etc/portage/make.conf
# mirrorselect -D -s4
interactive:
# mirrorselect -i -r
Options:
--version show program's version number and exit
-h, --help show this help message and exit
Main modes:
-a, --all_mirrors This will present a list of all filtered search
results to make it possible to select mirrors you wish
to use. For the -r, --rsync option, it will select
the rotation server only. As multiple rsync URL's are
not supported.
-D, --deep Deep mode. This is used to give a more accurate speed
test. It will download a 100k file from each server.
Because of this you should only use this option if you
have a good connection.
-i, --interactive Interactive Mode, this will present a list to make it
possible to select mirrors you wish to use.
Server type selection (choose at most one):
-c COUNTRY, -country COUNTRY
only use mirrors from the specified country NOTE:
Names with a space must be quoted eg.: -c 'South
Korea'
-F, --ftp ftp only mode. Will not consider hosts of other types.
-H, --http http only mode. Will not consider hosts of other types
-S, --https https only mode. Will not consider hosts of other
types
-r, --rsync rsync mode. Allows you to interactively select your
rsync mirror. Requires -i or -a to be used.
-R REGION, -region REGION
only use mirrors from the specified region NOTE: Names
with a space must be quoted eg.: -R 'North America'
-4, --ipv4 only use IPv4
-6, --ipv6 only use IPv6
Other options:
-b BLOCKSIZE, -blocksize BLOCKSIZE
This is to be used in automatic mode and will split
the hosts into blocks of BLOCKSIZE for use with
netselect. This is required for certain routers which
block 40+ requests at any given time. Recommended
parameters to pass are: -s 3 -b 10
-d VERBOSITY, -debug VERBOSITY
debug mode, pass in the debug level [1-9]
-f FILE, -file FILE
An alternate file to download for deep testing. Please
choose the file carefully as to not abuse the system
by selecting an overly large size file. You must also
use the -m, --md5 option.
-m MD5, --md5=MD5 An alternate file md5sum value used to compare the
downloaded file against for deep testing.
-o, --output Output Only Mode, this is especially useful when being
used during installation, to redirect output to a file
other than /etc/portage/make.conf
-P PROXY, -proxy PROXY
Proxy server to use if not the default proxy in the
environment
-q, --quiet Quiet mode
-s SERVERS, -servers SERVERS
Specify Number of servers for Automatic Mode to
select. this is only valid for download mirrors. If
this is not specified, a default of 1 is used.
-t TIMEOUT, -timeout TIMEOUT
Timeout for deep mode. Defaults to 10 seconds.
-e EXCLUDE, -exclude EXCLUDE
Exclude host from mirrors list.
Select the Gentoo rsync mirror
TODO: These instructions will only work if sync-uri is not already set in /etc/portage/repos.conf, otherwise it will simply add duplicate entries.
Gentoo documentation states:
Gentoo is hosted by many mirrors around the globe. Selecting a mirror that is geographically near may help speed up repository syncs.
The default configuration of the Gentoo repository comes from sys-apps/portage and is located at /usr/share/portage/config/repos.conf. However settings in /etc/portage/repos.conf override it.
mirrorselect will not create the /etc/portage/repos.conf/gentoo.conf file automatically. If that file does not exist, mirrorselect will default to using the old make.conf SYNC variable which has been deprecated. In order to avoid this make sure Portage is up to date and copy the repos.conf file from Portage's /usr (library) location to the /etc (configuration) location:
root #emerge --ask --update sys-apps/portageroot #mkdir /etc/portage/repos.conf
root #cp /usr/share/portage/config/repos.conf /etc/portage/repos.conf/gentoo.conf
For additional repos.conf documentation and configuration please refer to Portage/Sync#Portage_configuration
Then find a Gentoo rsync mirror with mirrorselect (make sure to use sync-type = rsync):
root #mirrorselect -i -r -o >> /etc/portage/repos.conf/gentoo.confJust navigate to the mirrors of choice and press Space to select one (or more) mirrors.
Troubleshooting
In case of problems with rsync mirror it might help to check the mirrorstats.