AFRICLOUD Public Software Mirror: Fast Linux Downloads for Africa

Fast, reliable Linux downloads for the African continent

AFRICLOUD operates a free, public software mirror at mirror.africloud.com, providing fast access to major Linux distributions for users across Africa. Whether you are a system administrator maintaining a fleet of servers, a developer setting up a fresh workstation, or a hobbyist exploring Linux for the first time, our mirror is designed to make package downloads faster and more reliable.

A software mirror is a server that hosts an exact copy of software repositories maintained by Linux distribution projects such as Ubuntu, Debian, and AlmaLinux. Instead of downloading packages from a distant server on another continent, your system can fetch them from a geographically closer mirror - reducing download times, improving reliability, and easing the load on the original upstream servers.

Why a local mirror matters for Africa

Internet connectivity across Africa has improved enormously in recent years, but international bandwidth remains expensive and often congested. When a server in Johannesburg, Nairobi, or Kinshasa needs to download hundreds of megabytes of updates from a mirror in the United States or northern Europe, the result is often slow speeds, interrupted downloads, and wasted time.

The AFRICLOUD mirror is hosted in our Johannesburg data centre, which is directly connected to major internet exchanges and peering points serving Southern, Eastern and Central Africa. This means that traffic from the AFRICLOUD mirror reaches African destinations via short, direct network paths - avoiding the long round-trips to overseas mirrors that add latency and reduce throughput.

For a typical system update of 200-500 MB, the difference can be substantial. Where a download from a US-based or European mirror might take several minutes over a congested international path, the same download from a regional mirror can complete in a fraction of the time - particularly for users in Southern, Eastern and Central Africa with good connectivity to Johannesburg.

Speed is not the only benefit. Closer mirrors also mean fewer network hops, which reduces the chance of packet loss and interrupted downloads. For automated systems running unattended updates overnight, reliability matters as much as raw speed. You can test latency to our Johannesburg data centre yourself using the AFRICLOUD Network Looking Glass.

Available distributions

The AFRICLOUD mirror hosts complete repositories for several of the most widely used Linux distributions:

• AlmaLinux - A community-driven, enterprise-grade distribution and a popular alternative to Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). Widely used for production servers, web hosting, and business applications.
• Rocky Linux - Another community enterprise Linux distribution, founded by one of the original CentOS co-founders. Designed for environments that require long-term stability and binary compatibility with RHEL.
• Ubuntu - One of the most popular Linux distributions worldwide, used for everything from desktop computing to cloud servers. Its extensive package library and regular release cycle make it a favourite among developers and businesses alike.
• Debian - The distribution that Ubuntu is built upon, renowned for its stability, security focus, and conservative approach to package updates. A trusted choice for servers that must run without interruption.

All of these are available as operating system templates when you deploy an AFRICLOUD VPS. If you are new to managing your own server, our guide to self-managed VPS hosting explains what to expect.

Additional distributions and repositories may be added over time based on community demand. The mirror also aggregates RSS feeds from upstream distribution projects, so you can stay informed about new releases, security advisories, and important announcements directly from the mirror homepage.

How your system finds the mirror

Most Linux distributions use GeoIP-based mirror selection to automatically route package downloads to the nearest available mirror. When your system runs a package update, the distribution's mirror network identifies your approximate location and directs you to a geographically close mirror - which may include mirror.africloud.com if you are in the region it serves.

This means you do not need to manually configure anything. If you are running a server in Southern, Eastern or Central Africa, your package manager may already be using the AFRICLOUD mirror without you knowing. You can verify which mirror your system is using by checking your package manager logs after running an update.

For full details on available repositories and their sync status, visit mirror.africloud.com.

Community infrastructure, free to use

The AFRICLOUD software mirror is entirely free to use. No account is required, no registration, and no usage limits. It is part of AFRICLOUD's broader commitment to improving internet infrastructure for the African continent.

We believe that reliable access to open-source software is foundational to the growth of Africa's technology sector. By reducing the friction of downloading and updating Linux systems, we hope to make it easier for African developers, businesses, and institutions to build on open-source foundations.

The mirror complements our other public infrastructure tools, including the AFRICLOUD Network Looking Glass, which lets anyone test network connectivity to our data centres in Lisbon and Johannesburg. Together, these tools reflect our belief that transparency and accessibility are essential to building trust in cloud infrastructure.

If you are running NVMe-powered VPS instances with AFRICLOUD in Johannesburg, your package updates benefit from being on the same network as the mirror - resulting in the fastest possible download speeds.

About AFRICLOUD

AFRICLOUD provides high-performance VPS hosting from strategic data centres in Lisbon (Portugal) and Johannesburg (South Africa). All plans include NVMe storage, KVM virtualisation, and a 99.9% uptime commitment. We accept credit and debit cards, PayPal, and over 200 cryptocurrencies.

Deploy a VPS with fast local mirror access - explore plans at africloud.com. Use promo code 50NEW for 50% off your first order.

Learn more at africloud.com.