$ Linux Command

Administration

reposync

Synchronize yum/dnf repositories to a local directory.

repositoriesyumdnfmirrorsyncrpm

Additional Notes

reposync downloads the contents of yum or dnf repositories to a local directory, creating a local mirror. It retrieves all RPM packages and associated metadata from one or more remote repositories and stores them for offline or local use.

System administrators use reposync to create local repository mirrors for faster package installations across a network, air-gapped environments that cannot access the internet, or to preserve specific package versions for reproducibility. The synced repository can then be served via HTTP, FTP, or a local file path.

Syntax

reposync [options]

Parameters

  • options: Flags that change how reposync behaves.
  • target: Optional file, device, interface, user, service, or command target when the command supports one.

Common Options

  • -p dir, --download_path=dir: Directory to download packages to.
  • -r repo, --repoid=repo: Synchronize only the specified repository ID.
  • -a arch, --arch=arch: Download packages for the specified architecture.
  • -l, --allow-path: Allow download to paths outside the repository root.
  • -n, --newest-only: Download only the newest version of each package.
  • -u, --umount: Unmount repositories after synchronization.
  • -c config: Use a specific yum/dnf configuration file.
  • -d, --delete: Delete packages from the local mirror that are no longer in the remote repository.
  • -e cache_dir, --cachedir=cache_dir: Specify the cache directory.
  • --download-metadata: Download repository metadata.
  • -g, --gpgcheck: Check GPG signatures on downloaded packages.
  • --norepopath: Do not add the repository path to the download directory.
  • -q, --quiet: Quiet mode.
  • -v, --verbose: Verbose output.
  • --help: Show help.

Examples

reposync -p /var/www/html/repos

Sync all enabled repositories to a local directory.

reposync -r base -p /repo/mirror

Sync only the base repository.

reposync -r base -r updates -p /repo -n

Sync only the newest packages from base and updates.

reposync -p /repo --download-metadata

Sync packages and also download repository metadata.

reposync -p /repo -a x86_64

Sync only x86_64 architecture packages.

reposync -p /repo -d

Sync and delete local packages not in the remote repository.

reposync -c /etc/yum.repos.d/custom.repo -p /repo

Sync using a specific repository configuration file.

Practical Notes

  • After running reposync, run createrepo (or createrepo_c) on the downloaded directory to generate repository metadata: createrepo /path/to/repo.
  • For CentOS/RHEL 8+ with DNF, use dnf reposync which has a similar interface.
  • The -n option saves significant disk space and time, especially on large repositories with many package versions.
  • For a complete offline mirror, also sync GPG keys and distribute them to client machines.
  • Serve the synced repository with a web server (Apache, Nginx) or share via NFS.
  • On client machines, create a .repo file pointing to file:///path/to/repo or http://mirror-server/repo.
  • reposync is part of the yum-utils package on RHEL/CentOS 7 and the dnf-utils or dnf-plugins-core package on CentOS 8+.