# Arch Linux Archive

Related articles

- Downgrading packages

The Arch Linux Archive (a.k.a ALA), formerly known as Arch Linux Rollback Machine (a.k.a ARM), stores official repositories snapshots, iso images and bootstrap tarballs across time.

You can use it to

- Downgrade to a previous version of one package (last version is broken, I want the previous one)
- Restore all your packages at a precise moment (my system is broken, I want to go back 2 months ago)
- Find a previous version of an ISO image

## Location

The Arch Linux Archive is available at https://archive.archlinux.org/.

Previous locations listed below are deprecated and will be closed soon:

- http://seblu.net/a/archive
- http://ala.seblu.net/

The locations listed below are now closed:

- http://seblu.net/a/arm
- ftp://seblu.net/archlinux/arm
- ftp://seblu.net/archlinux/archive

The source code is also available for setting up your own mirror.

## Directories

The Archive is split into 3 main directories detailed below.

    ├── iso
    ├── packages
    └── repos

### /repos

The repos directory contains daily snapshots of official mirror organized by date like in the following example.

    repos
    ├── 2013
    │   ├── 08
    │   │   └── 31
    │   │       ├── community
    │   │       ├── community-staging
    │   │       ├── community-testing
    │   │       ├── core
    │   │       ├── extra
    │   │       ├── gnome-unstable
    │   │       ├── kde-unstable
    │   │       ├── lastsync
    │   │       ├── multilib
    │   │       ├── multilib-staging
    │   │       ├── multilib-testing
    │   │       ├── pool
    │   │       ├── staging
    │   │       └── testing
    │   ├── 09
    │   │   ├── 01
    │   │   ├── 02
    │   │   ├── ...
    │   │   ├── 21
    │   │   └── 22
    │   ├── 10
    │   │   ├── 01
    │   │   ├── 02
    │   │   ├── ...
    │   │
    │   ├── 11
    │   └── 12
    ├── 2014
    │   ├── 01
    │   │   ├── 01
    │   │   ├── 02
    │   │   ├── ...
    │   │
    │   ├── 02
    │   ├── 03
    │   ├── ...
    │   └── 09
    │       ├── 01
    │       ├── ...
    │       └── 28
    ├── last
    ├── month
    └── week

Note: The last 3 special directories (last, week and month) which links respectively to the last synced repository, to the last monday and to the first of the current month.

### /packages

The packages directory contains all versions of each package with their signatures. One directory by package and package directories are grouped by their first letter.

    ├── packages
    │   ├── a
    │   │   ├── awesome
    │   │   │   ├── awesome-3.5.0-1-i686.pkg.tar.xz
    │   │   │   ├── awesome-3.5.0-1-i686.pkg.tar.xz.sig
    │   │   │   ├── awesome-3.5.0-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz
    │   │   │   ├── awesome-3.5.0-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz.sig
    │   │   │   ├── awesome-3.5.1-1-i686.pkg.tar.xz
    │   │   │   ├── awesome-3.5.1-1-i686.pkg.tar.xz.sig
    │   │   │   ├── ...
    │   │   │
    │   │   ├── ...
    │   │   ├── awstats
    │   │   └── axel
    │   │
    │   ├── b
    │   ├── ...
    │   └── z

You can use the magic subdirectory .all to access all packages by their name. It acts as a flat directory containing all versions of every package.

    ├── packages
    │   ├── .all
    │   │   ├── awesome-3.5.1-1-i686.pkg.tar.xz
    │   │   ├── ...
    │   │   ├── zsh-5.0.2-3-i686.pkg.tar.xz
    │   │   ├── zsh-5.0.2-4-i686.pkg.tar.xz
    │   │   └── ...

You can download the full package list (there are over a hundred thousand packages) as a compressed index: index.0.xz.

    $ curl https://archive.archlinux.org/packages/.all/index.0.xz | unxz

    0ad-a14-1-i686
    0ad-a14-1-x86_64
    0ad-a14-2-i686
    ...
    zziplib-0.13.62-1-x86_64
    zziplib-0.13.62-2-i686
    zziplib-0.13.62-2-x86_64

### /iso

The iso directory contains official ISO images and bootstrap tarballs sorted by release date.

    ├── 2014.09.03
    ├── 2014.10.01
    ├── 2014.11.01
    ├── 2014.12.01
    ├── 2015.07.01
    ├── 2015.08.01
    ├── 2015.09.01
    └── 2015.10.01
        ├── arch
        ├── archlinux-2015.10.01-dual.iso
        ├── archlinux-2015.10.01-dual.iso.sig
        ├── archlinux-2015.10.01-dual.iso.torrent
        ├── archlinux-bootstrap-2015.10.01-i686.tar.gz
        ├── archlinux-bootstrap-2015.10.01-i686.tar.gz.sig
        ├── archlinux-bootstrap-2015.10.01-x86_64.tar.gz
        ├── archlinux-bootstrap-2015.10.01-x86_64.tar.gz.sig
        ├── md5sums.txt
        └── sha1sums.txt

## FAQ

### How to downgrade one package

Find the package you want under /packages. Download it and install it using `pacman -U`.

See also Downgrading packages#Automation for tools that simplify the process.

### How to restore all packages to a specific date

To restore all packages to their version at a specific date, let's say 30 March 2014, you have to direct pacman to this date, by editing your `/etc/pacman.conf` and use the following server directive:

    [core]
    SigLevel = PackageRequired
    Server=https://archive.archlinux.org/repos/2014/03/30/$repo/os/$arch

    [extra]
    SigLevel = PackageRequired
    Server=https://archive.archlinux.org/repos/2014/03/30/$repo/os/$arch

    [community]
    SigLevel = PackageRequired
    Server=https://archive.archlinux.org/repos/2014/03/30/$repo/os/$arch

or by replacing your `/etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist` with the following content:

    ##
    ## Arch Linux repository mirrorlist
    ## Generated on 2042-01-01
    ##
    Server=https://archive.archlinux.org/repos/2014/03/30/$repo/os/$arch

Then update the database and force downgrade:

    # pacman -Syyuu

Note: It's not safe to mix Archive and up-to-date mirrors. In case of a download failure, you will fall-back on an upstream package and you will have packages not from the same epoch in the rest of the system.

## History

- The original ARM (Archlinux Rollback Machine) was closed on 2013-08-18.[1]
- The new one is hosted on seblu.net since 2013-08-31.
- New URL and closing the old ARM hierarchy on 2015-10-13. A new software, agetpkg-gitAUR was introduced.
- Moved to archive.archlinux.org on 2015-12-19.[2]

Category:

- Package management