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# Arch Linux Archive

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- 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

Packages are only kept for a few years, afterwards they are moved to the Arch Linux Historical Archive on archive.org.

## Location

The Arch Linux Archive is available at https://archive.archlinux.org/ and mirrors around the globe.

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-4.3-2-x86_64.pkg.tar.zst
    │   │   │   ├── awesome-4.3-2-x86_64.pkg.tar.zst.sig
    │   │   │   ├── awesome-4.3-3-x86_64.pkg.tar.zst
    │   │   │   ├── awesome-4.3-3-x86_64.pkg.tar.zst.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-4.3-2-x86_64.pkg.tar.zst
    │   │   ├── ...
    │   │   ├── zsh-5.8-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.zst
    │   │   ├── zsh-5.8.1-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.zst
    │   │   └── ...

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-a23.1-2-x86_64
    0ad-a23.1-3-x86_64
    ...
    zziplib-0.13.69-1-x86_64
    zziplib-0.13.70-1-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
    └── 2017.04.01
        ├── arch
        ├── archlinux-2017.04.01-x86_64.iso
        ├── archlinux-2017.04.01-x86_64.iso.sig
        ├── archlinux-2017.04.01-x86_64.iso.torrent
        ├── archlinux-bootstrap-2017.04.01-x86_64.tar.gz
        ├── archlinux-bootstrap-2017.04.01-x86_64.tar.gz.sig
        ├── md5sums.txt
        └── sha1sums.txt

Tip Since release 2022.10.01, the Arch Linux Archive is also added as a WebSeed to the torrents (but not magnet links). All torrent files can be downloaded from the releases page.

## Frequently asked questions

### How to downgrade one package

Find the package you want under /packages and let pacman fetch it for installation. For example:

    # pacman -U https://archive.archlinux.org/packages/path/packagename.pkg.tar.zst

Letting pacman fetch it will automatically download the package's detached .sig file and verify it according to `/etc/pacman.conf` settings.

Alternatively, download and install the package manually 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 us say 30 March 2014, you have to direct pacman to this date, by editing your `/etc/pacman.conf` and use the following server directive:

    /etc/pacman.conf

    [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

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

    /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist

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

Note In May 2023 the community repository has been removed. If you need to downgrade beyond that point, you must add a similar community entry.

Then update the database and force downgrade:

    # pacman -Syyuu

If you get errors complaining about corrupted/invalid packages due to PGP signature, try to first update separately archlinux-keyring and ca-certificates. Alternatively, you can decide to temporarily disable signature checking altogether.

Warning It is 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.

## Historical Archive

Maintaining the Arch Linux Archive consumes significant amount of resources, so old packages are cleaned up from time to time.

Before removing them, old packages are uploaded to a dedicated collection "Arch Linux Historical Archive" on archive.org.

The Historical Archive does not provide a way to access a "snapshot" of Arch packages at a given point in time. However, there is a redirection on `archive.archlinux.org` so that downloads for old packages are redirected to the Historical Archive on `archive.org`. There should be no visible impact from the user side, except from the fact that `archive.org` is generally quite slow for downloading.

### Finding packages in the Historical Archive

The Arch Linux Historical Archive collection has an index of all packages: https://archive.org/details/archlinuxarchive

It is also possible to directly access a package by its identifier. The general pattern for identifiers is `archlinux_pkg_sanitized_package_name`.

To obtain the sanitized package name, simply replace any `@`, `+` or `.` character in the package name by an underscore `_`.

For instance, the identifier for lucene++ is `archlinux_pkg_lucene__`.

You can then access the details page of a package via its identifier, for instance: https://archive.org/details/archlinux_pkg_lucene__.

It is also possible to run searches with the archive.org Python client:

    $ ia search subject:"archlinux package" subject:'mysql'

    {"identifier": "archlinux_pkg_ejabberd-mod_mysql"}
    {"identifier": "archlinux_pkg_ejabberd-mod_mysql-svn"}
    {"identifier": "archlinux_pkg_gambas3-gb-db-mysql"}
    {"identifier": "archlinux_pkg_gambas3-gb-mysql"}
    {"identifier": "archlinux_pkg_libgda-mysql"}

### Downloading packages from the Historical Archive

All available package versions (and their signature) can be accessed via the download page of a package: https://archive.org/download/archlinux_pkg_lucene__.

To download, verify and install a package using pacman:

    # pacman -U https://archive.org/download/archlinux_pkg_cjdns/cjdns-20.5-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.zst

Package verification is controlled by pacman's `RemoteFileSigLevel` option. Note that if you use pacman, you have to figure out the dependencies yourself.

It is also possible to use the archive.org Python client.

Download a specific version of a package:

    $ ia download archlinux_pkg_cjdns cjdns-20.5-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.zst{,.sig}

Download all x86_64 versions of a package, with signatures:

    $ ia download archlinux_pkg_cjdns --glob="*x86_64.pkg.tar.*"

## History

- The original ARM (Archlinux Rollback Machine) was closed on 2013-08-18.[1]
- It was then 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]
- Old packages from 2013-2016 uploaded to archive.org on 2018-06-05.

Categories:

- Package management
- Arch projects

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