Downloading/mirroring the TeX Live repository

If you have problems with the network installation, or have several local machines to install or keep up to date, you may want to mirror the TeX Live repository and handle updating separately. Our “repository” contains each TeX Live package in (one, two, or three) separate .tar.xz files, plus various infrastructure files. This repository is what is used by our own network installer (install-tl) and by tlmgr for updates.

The total size of the repository is nearly six gigabytes. By far the most efficient method of mirroring is rsync:
  rsync -a --delete rsync://somectan/somepath/systems/texlive/tlnet/ /your/local/dir/
Here, somectan is a CTAN mirror that offers rsync and is nearby to you (see below) The /somepath is the top-level CTAN directory on that mirror.
Add -v if you want to see the names of the files as they are transferred.
Add -L if your system does not support symbolic links.
Full rsync documentation.

If rsync is problematic for whatever reason, you can use wget (or other tools) to mirror via http(s) or ftp. Here is a sample wget invocation:
  wget --mirror --no-parent ftp://somectan/somepath/systems/texlive/tlnet/ /your/local/dir
with the same somectan and somepath as above. You may also want to look into the --background, --no-host-directories, and/or --cut-dirs options. Full wget documentation.

After successfully mirroring, you can run the regular TL installer, either one of the install-tl* scripts in your new local repository directory, or unpack install-tl.{tar.gz,zip}, etc. See the installation instructions or read the documentation, which has an item about the -in-place installation option.

If you are on Windows, to run install-tl-windows directly you must ensure that all the *.bat, *.dll, and *.manifest files are executable. Mirroring software and/or the original mirror often clears executable permissions. Unpacking install-tl.zip may be simpler.

Sources: the mirroring as above will not include the hundreds of megabytes of sources for the compiled programs. The sources for the current release are on CTAN, and historical releases are also available (under systems/texlive; both the initial release each year, and the frozen state at the end of the cycle in tlnet-final), and current development sources are in the repository. (As is the record of all commits since ca.2005.)

Finding a nearby CTAN mirror

A first cut: if you visit mirror.ctan.org in a browser, you will be automatically redirected to the top level of a mirror that the CTAN system thinks is near to you. However, not all CTAN mirrors provide rsync access, and for mirroring TL, you want rsync.

So, a CTAN volunteer wrote a ctan-mirrors script to ping listed mirrors so you can determine the closest one to you. Giving the script the argument -p rsync will restrict the list to those mirrors providing rsync, and -m 0 will check all available mirrors.

Alternatively, you can examine the CTAN mirror list by hand.

Information about installing TeX Live directly over the Internet is available separately, as well as other ways to acquire TeX Live.


$Date: 2024/03/13 22:47:17 $; TeX Live;
TUG home page; webmaster; facebook; twitter; mastodon;   (via DuckDuckGo)