Creating a DNF Repository Mirror

Rowan Puttergill, Fedora Documentation Team Version F42 and newer Last review: 2026-05-10
A local DNF repository mirror lets you serve Fedora package updates from your own infrastructure. This is useful for organisations managing multiple Fedora systems, restricted or metered network environments, or testing updates on a staging system before rolling them out to production.

Prerequisites

Disk space

Use dnf repoinfo to check the size of each repository you plan to mirror:

$ dnf repoinfo fedora updates

The Repodate Info: Size fields in the output show the total package size for each repository. Run the same command for any additional repositories you want to mirror, using dnf repolist to see available repository IDs.

Repository size grows throughout a release lifecycle as updates accumulate. The updates repository in particular grows steadily from release day until end-of-life. Budget additional headroom beyond the initial estimate. Repositories can grow by up to 30% or more over the lifecycle of a release, so plan accordingly.

Installing dnf5-plugins

The dnf reposync command comes from the dnf5-plugins package:

$ sudo dnf install dnf5-plugins

An HTTP server

A web server is required to serve the mirrored content to other systems. This guide uses Apache httpd, but nginx works equally well.

$ sudo dnf install httpd
$ sudo systemctl enable --now httpd

Syncing the repository

Use dnf reposync to download repository content to a local directory. The following example syncs the fedora and updates repositories:

$ sudo dnf reposync --repo=fedora --repo=updates --download-path=/var/www/html/mirror

To limit the sync to specific architectures and avoid downloading packages you do not need:

$ sudo dnf reposync --repo=fedora --repo=updates --download-path=/var/www/html/mirror --arch=x86_64 --arch=noarch

To remove packages from the local mirror that are no longer present in the remote repository:

$ sudo dnf reposync --repo=fedora --repo=updates --download-path=/var/www/html/mirror --delete

The synced content is now accessible at http://localhost/mirror/, or whatever your server’s hostname or IP address is.

The first sync downloads the full repository and can take a long time depending on your connection. Later syncs only download new or changed packages.

Configuring client systems

On each system that should use the local mirror, create a .repo file in /etc/yum.repos.d/. For example, /etc/yum.repos.d/local-mirror.repo:

[local-fedora]
name=Local Fedora mirror
baseurl=http://mirror-server/mirror/fedora/
enabled=1
gpgcheck=1
gpgkey=file:///etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-fedora-$releasever-$basearch

[local-updates]
name=Local Fedora updates mirror
baseurl=http://mirror-server/mirror/updates/
enabled=1
gpgcheck=1
gpgkey=file:///etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-fedora-$releasever-$basearch

Replace mirror-server with the hostname or IP address of your mirror server.

To ensure clients use only the local mirror, disable the default Fedora repositories by setting enabled=0 in /etc/yum.repos.d/fedora.repo and /etc/yum.repos.d/fedora-updates.repo.

GPG verification

dnf reposync downloads repository metadata and packages including their signatures. Clients use the Fedora GPG keys already present at /etc/pki/rpm-gpg/ to verify packages, so no additional key configuration is required.

Keeping the mirror current

Set up a systemd service and timer to sync the mirror automatically.

Create a service file at /etc/systemd/system/dnf-mirror.service:

[Unit]
Description=Sync DNF repository mirror

[Service]
Type=oneshot
ExecStart=dnf reposync --repo=fedora --repo=updates --download-path=/var/www/html/mirror --delete

Create the timer at /etc/systemd/system/dnf-mirror.timer:

[Unit]
Description=Daily DNF repository mirror sync

[Timer]
OnCalendar=daily
Persistent=true

[Install]
WantedBy=timers.target

Enable and start the timer:

$ sudo systemctl enable --now dnf-mirror.timer

Verify the timer is active:

$ systemctl status dnf-mirror.timer

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