tlnet

A daily mirror of CTAN/systems/texlive/tlnet on Cloudflare R2. This is the directory tlmgr installs and updates from, and it is the only part of CTAN here, complete with every platform, docs and sources. About 17,000 files and 6.8 GB.

How to use

TeX Live and TinyTeX both use tlmgr:

tlmgr option repository https://tlnet.ijosh.com/systems/texlive/tlnet/
tlmgr update --self --all

For a fresh install, give the installer the same URL:

install-tl -repository https://tlnet.ijosh.com/systems/texlive/tlnet/

To go back to CTAN's mirror rotation: tlmgr option repository ctan.

The path mirrors CTAN's own layout, so the host works anywhere a CTAN mirror URL does. It tracks the current TeX Live release and moves to the next one when upstream does.

How it works

Once a day GitHub Actions runs the following pipeline inside the toolbox image. Every step is a verb of the rsync engine in katoptra/lib, in the order Taskfile.yml gives them; the landing page is this mirror's own verb:

1. clock list state rebuild — stamp the day, list the subtree on CTAN's master (dante), and fetch the listing the previous run left in the bucket, rebuilding it from the bucket if it went missing.
2. diff split — take what upstream has and the state lacks, refuse a tree past R2's free 10 GB, and split the delta into batches.
3. prepare batches — check the signed texlive.tlpdb.sha512 against the pinned TeX Live key, then per batch rsync the files, check every signed file and every package container against the tlpdb's checksums, upload, and write the new state. The tlpdb lands last, after every container it names.
4. delete reconcile — drop the keys that left upstream, and once a day sweep the bucket against the state for anything neither owns.
5. index — upload the landing page at https://tlnet.ijosh.com/, dated.
6. smoke report ping — read texlive.tlpdb.sha512 and a sample of the run's keys back over the public domain, summarise what landed, and ping healthchecks.io. Silence is the alert.

Is it fresh?

Check last-modified on the index:

curl -sI https://tlnet.ijosh.com/systems/texlive/tlnet/tlpkg/texlive.tlpdb.sha512

Why use this?

tlmgr's default repository is CTAN's mirror rotation: every request lands on a different volunteer mirror, and any one of them can be unreachable, on a slow connection, behind on TLS, or a few days stale.

This setup ensures a consistent, reliable source for TeX Live updates built on Cloudflare's network.

Want your own?

1. Fork this repo.
2. Create an R2 bucket named tlnet, an API token with Object Read & Write scoped to it, and a custom domain pointing at the bucket. Set HOST to that domain in Taskfile.yml. For a landing page at /, add a Cloudflare Transform Rule rewriting the path / to /index.html, and put your own links and text in site/index.html.
3. Add the repository secrets below. They are the whole requirement.
4. Actions -> sync -> Run workflow. The first run finds an empty bucket and fills it; every run after that pushes the daily delta.
5. Start it every day. Nothing in this repository schedules a run: add a schedule: trigger to sync.yml with a time of your own, or dispatch it from outside, as this mirror is.

Secret	What it is
R2_ACCOUNT_ID	The Cloudflare account the bucket lives in
R2_ACCESS_KEY_ID	R2 API token with Object Read & Write on the bucket
R2_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY	That token's secret
HEALTHCHECK_URL	Optional: a healthchecks.io ping URL

To test or run locally, with task and Docker (or Apple's container) installed:

task check    # render every command of the pipeline inside the toolbox image; diff it against render.txt
task sync     # one run, with the three R2_* variables and HEALTHCHECK_URL exported

The image, the engine's verbs and the two workflows this repository calls are katoptra/lib's: the include and the image at v1, the workflows at a release commit.

Pull requests are welcome.

MIT licensed. Built by Josh Vaughen.