Downloading OpenSolaris packages from pkg.opensolaris.org is extremely slow, at least here in Germany. As we were planning to upgrade our OpenSolaris boxes from 2008.11 to 2009.06 during a downtime, we needed a significant speedup.
Package Repository Mirrors
Fortunately, it’s pretty simple to setup a mirror yourself. Just grab the 7.2 GB disk image of the complete repository (from a OpenSolaris mirror nearby), copy it to your harddrive and get the preinstalled pkg server running. Then you’re only one command away from actually using it. Here are the steps, one by one in detail:
Get the repository image onto your local hard drive
First, create a file system to keep it out of your boot environment clones:
pfexec zfs create -o compression=on -o atime=off rpool/export/pkg
Then, download the osol-repo-0906-full.iso image of the OpenSolaris pkg repository from a nearby mirror:
wget http://mirror.netcologne.de/opensolaris/2009/06/osol-repo-0906-full.iso
and mount it to be able to copy its contents to your local hard drive using rsync
pfexec mount -F hsfs `pfexec lofiadm -a ~/osol-repo-0906-full.iso` /mnt pfexec rsync -aP /mnt/repo /export/pkg/
Edit your repo settings
pfexec vi /export/pkg/repo/cfg_cache
replacing
origins = http://pkg.opensolaris.org/release
with
origins = http://[your hostname of your package server]
Configure and start the pkg-server
svccfg import /var/svc/manifest/application/pkg-server.xml svccfg -s application/pkg/server setprop pkg/inst_root=/export/pkg/repo svccfg -s application/pkg/server setprop pkg/readonly=true svcadm enable pkg-server
Use it
Now you can configure your OpenSolaris clients to use your own package repository server as mirror:
pfexec pkg set-authority -m http://[your hostname of your package server] opensolaris.org
Using a local mirror reduced the install time of the sunstudioexpress package from roughly half an hour to 2 minutes.
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