The UK Mirror Service

Fast local copies — "mirrors" — of popular Internet resources, provided by the University of Kent Computing Laboratory.

The UK Mirror Service is provided by the Computer Science Department of the University of Kent, primarily for the benefit of the Kent community, the UK free and open source software communities and academic users in general.

We copy ("mirror") data from source sites all over the world, updating our copies at least once a day. By using our mirrors, users can get rapid access to a variety of popular Internet resources, even if the source site is unavailable or overloaded. By having us as a mirror, source sites can reduce their load and provide faster access to their data for users in the UK and Europe.

Mirrors

We maintain a large collection of freely-available electronic material, including computer software, Web pages, electronic text, scientific data, audio material, and static and moving pictures. Users can access our mirrors at no cost using a powerful Web-based interface, or by the FTP or rsync protocols. We are an official mirror site for many of our mirrors.

Our software mirrors include software for virtually every major computing platform in existence, and feature everything from end-user applications and tools for software developers to complete freely-available operating systems. We mirror both free, open-source software — available for use and modification by anybody at no cost — and updates to proprietary applications.

Our academic mirrors include vast libraries of public-domain electronic books, along with language teaching, scientific and historical resources.

Technology

The UK Mirror Service represents the continuation of the mirroring research and operations that have been performed at the University of Kent Computer Science Department since the late 1980s. The service also includes technologies developed by the University Of Lancaster during the joint operation of the UK Mirror Service in previous years.

Further help and Support

We always appreciate feedback from UK Mirror Service users about new resources we should mirror, suggestions for improvements to the service, or problems they have encountered. Users may contact our helpdesk by email or by using our Web feedback forms.