A bash script to select the fastest ubuntu apt geo-mirror

mirror_test.sh

#!/bin/bash -e

# mirror_test.sh
# benchmarks closest ubuntu mirrors and outputs them in speed order
# bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://gist.githubusercontent.com/lox/9152137/raw/mirror_test.sh)"

RELEASE=$(lsb_release -c -s 2>/dev/null || echo 14.04)
MIRRORS=$(curl -s http://mirrors.ubuntu.com/mirrors.txt)
TESTFILE="dists/$RELEASE/main/binary-amd64/Packages.bz2"
TIMEOUT=1
SAMPLES=3
BYTES=511999 #1mb

usage() {
cat << EOF
usage: $0 options

Tests out close by mirrors and prints them in speed order

OPTIONS:
   -h      Show this message
   -s <n>  Number of samples to take (default $SAMPLES)
EOF
}

# tests the provided mirror, outputs times
function test_mirror() {
  for s in $(seq 1 $SAMPLES) ; do
    time=$(curl -r 0-$BYTES --max-time $TIMEOUT --silent --output /dev/null --write-out %{time_total} ${1}${TESTFILE})
    if [ "$TIME" == "0.000" ] ; then exit 1; fi
    echo $time
  done
}

# tests all the mirrors, outputs mirror and average time
function test_all_mirrors() {
  for MIRROR in $MIRRORS; do
    mean=$(mean $(test_mirror $MIRROR))
    if [ "$mean" != "-nan" ] ; then
       printf '%-60s %.5f\n' $MIRROR $mean
    else
       printf '%-60s failed, ignoring\n' $MIRROR 1>&2
    fi
  done;
}

# calculates the mean of all arguments
function mean() {
  len=$#
  echo $* | tr " " "\n" | sort -n | head -n $(((len+1)/2)) | tail -n 1
}

# parse arguments
while getopts "hs:" OPTION
do
  case $OPTION in
    s) SAMPLES=$OPTARG ;;
    h) usage; exit 1 ;;
    ?) usage; exit ;;
  esac
done

# print mirrors in order of time
test_all_mirrors | sort -n -k 2 | grep http

From australia:

vagrant@ubuntu-13:/vagrant/vagrant$ ./mirror-test.sh -s5
http://mirror.waia.asn.au/ubuntu/                           0.19080 σ 0.037
http://ubuntu.mirror.uber.com.au/archive/                   0.21940 σ 0.131
http://mirror.as24220.net/pub/ubuntu/                       0.23880 σ 0.047
http://mirror.netspace.net.au/pub/ubuntu/                   0.25700 σ 0.051
http://ubuntu.mirror.crucial.com.au/                        0.26900 σ 0.062
http://mirror.aarnet.edu.au/pub/ubuntu/archive/             0.26940 σ 0.174
http://mirror.overthewire.com.au/ubuntu/                    0.27420 σ 0.057
http://mirror.internode.on.net/pub/ubuntu/ubuntu/           0.28080 σ 0.154
http://ubuntu.mirror.serversaustralia.com.au/ubuntu/        0.29120 σ 0.081
http://mirror.optus.net/ubuntu/                             0.29760 σ 0.078
http://mirror.as24220.net/pub/ubuntu-archive/               0.29980 σ 0.160
http://ftp.iinet.net.au/pub/ubuntu/                         0.31360 σ 0.204
http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/                           0.82380 σ 0.052

Useful for updating the mirror your apt-cacher-ng is using

bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://gist.githubusercontent.com/lox/9152137/raw/mirror_test.sh)" | head -n1 | awk '{ print $1 }' | sudo tee /etc/apt-cacher-ng/backends_ubuntu

Wonderful script. These days the HTTP request to http://mirrors.ubuntu.com/mirrors.txt seems to be geo-located already (according to the source IP - tested with tor).

See https://eomwandho.wordpress.com/2014/03/20/ubuntu-apt-get-select-best-server-using-apt-get-mirrors/