# The Nix cache is now much faster for users outside of North America and Europe!
**URL:** https://discourse.nixos.org/t/the-nix-cache-is-now-much-faster-for-users-outside-of-north-america-and-europe/496
**Category:** Announcements
**Created:** [July 11, 2018, 6:47pm UTC](https://discourse.nixos.org/t/the-nix-cache-is-now-much-faster-for-users-outside-of-north-america-and-europe/496 "2018-07-11T18:47:29Z")
**Posts on this page:** 14
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@grahamc](https://discourse.nixos.org/u/grahamc)
#### Post date: [July 11, 2018, 6:47pm UTC](https://discourse.nixos.org/t/the-nix-cache-is-now-much-faster-for-users-outside-of-north-america-and-europe/496/1 "2018-07-11T18:47:29Z")
I’m delighted to be able to announce that users all around the world will now have a great experience when fetching from the NixOS cache.
The NixOS cache is now being served from all of AWS CloudFront edge locations, significantly reducing latency for users in Asia, Africa, South America, and Oceania.
There are some more details here: [cache.nixos.org, now more local! - Graham Christensen](https://grahamc.com/blog/cache-nixos-org-now-more-local) but the short version is a 40 minute download is now less than 30 seconds!
---
### Author:  [@joehealy](https://discourse.nixos.org/u/joehealy)
#### Post date: [July 19, 2018, 2:07am UTC](https://discourse.nixos.org/t/the-nix-cache-is-now-much-faster-for-users-outside-of-north-america-and-europe/496/2 "2018-07-19T02:07:14Z")
I must express a big thanks for this.
I’ve just spun up a new test environment in AWS using nixops and the process has gone from:
deploy
wait…
watch to see downloading started…
go away get a coffee or two
come back to find it is ready
to something that is workable to stay and watch/demonstrate to others.
The first test I did was certainly faster for common packages (cache downloads zoomed past), then some of our other parts were slower. Unfortunately I didn’t time it.
The second test was noticeably faster than the first and took 3 min 40s (not very scientific, just using time and including building all machine configurations and copying our local closures up (~200mb). I guess this is your hot cache scenario from your blog post.
We had previously been using deployment.hasFastConnection as it was quicker to upload the closures than to download them from the cache.
Huge improvement and thank you very much.
---
### Author:  [@vcunat](https://discourse.nixos.org/u/vcunat)
#### Post date: [July 20, 2018, 5:04pm UTC](https://discourse.nixos.org/t/the-nix-cache-is-now-much-faster-for-users-outside-of-north-america-and-europe/496/3 "2018-07-20T17:04:43Z")
The cache now got an order of magnitude slower for one of my locations in CZ. I used to have ping 5 or 10ms, now it’s \>100ms and limited to 10Mbps, due to being routed all over the world 😭 I suppose I’m not their customer myself, so I can’t contact them directly?
Apparently their DNS geo-steering is broken for my IPs. I’m getting much faster response if I ping IPs resolved by public services around here. My DNS resolver asks Amazon’s authoritative servers from the very same IPs, so this isn’t about having to set up [EDNS client subnet](https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc7871) on my side or something.
> ****
>
> ```
> $ kdig cache.nixos.org AAAA +short
> d3m36hgdyp4koz.cloudfront.net.
> 2600:9000:20d1:800:10:dfa4:b0c0:93a1
> 2600:9000:20d1:c00:10:dfa4:b0c0:93a1
> 2600:9000:20d1:1000:10:dfa4:b0c0:93a1
> 2600:9000:20d1:3600:10:dfa4:b0c0:93a1
> 2600:9000:20d1:5600:10:dfa4:b0c0:93a1
> 2600:9000:20d1:6400:10:dfa4:b0c0:93a1
> 2600:9000:20d1:c000:10:dfa4:b0c0:93a1
> 2600:9000:20d1:d200:10:dfa4:b0c0:93a1
> ```
>
> ```
> $ kdig cache.nixos.org +short
> d3m36hgdyp4koz.cloudfront.net.
> 13.33.165.13
> 13.33.165.108
> 13.33.165.197
> 13.33.165.222
> ```
>
> ```
> traceroute to cache.nixos.org (2600:9000:2018:400:10:dfa4:b0c0:93a1), 30 hops max, 80 byte packets
> 3 2001:718:0:600:0:135:136:10 (2001:718:0:600:0:135:136:10) 7.058 ms 7.050 ms 7.146 ms
> 4 20ge1-3.core1.prg1.he.net (2001:7f8:14::6e:1) 4.650 ms 4.693 ms 4.687 ms
> 5 100ge16-1.core1.fra1.he.net (2001:470:0:213::1) 12.306 ms 12.194 ms 12.235 ms
> 6 100ge6-1.core1.ams1.he.net (2001:470:0:2d4::1) 36.517 ms 36.362 ms 36.061 ms
> 7 100ge8-1.core1.man1.he.net (2001:470:0:431::2) 26.037 ms 26.187 ms 26.387 ms
> 8 100ge8-1.core1.dub1.he.net (2001:470:0:410::2) 34.516 ms 34.454 ms 34.495 ms
> 9 100ge5-2.core1.nyc5.he.net (2001:470:0:440::1) 89.987 ms 89.981 ms 90.047 ms
> 10 100ge4-2.core1.nyc4.he.net (2001:470:0:20a::1) 91.093 ms 91.070 ms 91.114 ms
> 11 2001:428:601:e::1 (2001:428:601:e::1) 89.845 ms 89.862 ms 89.875 ms
> 12 2001:428::205:171:202:160 (2001:428::205:171:202:160) 107.806 ms 107.919 ms 107.914 ms
> 13 2001:428:1802:10:0:7:0:2 (2001:428:1802:10:0:7:0:2) 122.499 ms 122.580 ms 122.527 ms
> 14 * * *
> 15 2620:107:4000:ff::57 (2620:107:4000:ff::57) 110.089 ms 110.083 ms 110.023 ms
> 16 2620:107:4000:ff::2b (2620:107:4000:ff::2b) 111.451 ms 111.423 ms 111.375 ms
> 17 2600:9000:eee::63 (2600:9000:eee::63) 109.917 ms 109.927 ms 109.910 ms
> 18 2600:9000:fff:ff00::300 (2600:9000:fff:ff00::300) 112.169 ms 113.407 ms 113.388 ms
> 19 2600:9000:fff:ff01:0:50:102:11 (2600:9000:fff:ff01:0:50:102:11) 113.355 ms 2600:9000:fff:ff01:0:50:105:11 (2600:9000:fff:ff01:0:50:105:11) 112.989 ms 2600:9000:fff:ff01:0:50:103:11 (2600:9000:fff:ff01:0:50:103:11) 113.494 ms
> 20 2600:9000:fff:ff00::401 (2600:9000:fff:ff00::401) 111.912 ms 111.882 ms 111.867 ms
> 21 * * *
> ```
>
> ```
> traceroute to cache.nixos.org (13.33.165.13), 30 hops max, 60 byte packets
> 3 195.113.235.99 (195.113.235.99) 8.319 ms 8.280 ms 8.308 ms
> 4 ae0-998.praga2.pra.seabone.net (195.22.215.228) 4.546 ms 4.622 ms 4.551 ms
> 5 racc.franco33.fra.seabone.net (195.22.211.205) 16.283 ms 16.248 ms 38.857 ms
> 6 ae-5.r04.frnkge08.de.bb.gin.ntt.net (129.250.66.17) 23.630 ms 20.644 ms 16.376 ms
> 7 ae-24.r24.frnkge08.de.bb.gin.ntt.net (129.250.3.217) 24.996 ms 20.610 ms 23.812 ms
> 8 ae-4.r25.nycmny01.us.bb.gin.ntt.net (129.250.2.4) 100.957 ms 100.699 ms 102.916 ms
> 9 ae-1.r20.chcgil09.us.bb.gin.ntt.net (129.250.2.166) 146.411 ms 146.948 ms 152.818 ms
> 10 ae-6.r07.chcgil09.us.bb.gin.ntt.net (129.250.6.61) 150.013 ms 150.773 ms ae-12.r08.chcgil09.us.bb.gin.ntt.net (129.250.2.190) 151.627 ms
> 11 ae-1.a01.chcgil09.us.bb.gin.ntt.net (129.250.5.94) 143.799 ms ae-0.a01.chcgil09.us.bb.gin.ntt.net (129.250.4.218) 152.083 ms ae-31.a00.chcgil09.us.bb.gin.ntt.net (129.250.3.159) 161.577 ms
> 12 ae-1.amazon.chcgil09.us.bb.gin.ntt.net (129.250.201.94) 115.938 ms 119.696 ms 119.712 ms
> 13 * * *
> 14 * * *
> 15 * * *
> 16 * * *
> 17 * * *
> 18 * * *
> 19 server-13-33-165-13.ord50.r.cloudfront.net (13.33.165.13) 121.669 ms 115.558 ms 117.303 ms
> ```
---
### Author:  [@zimbatm](https://discourse.nixos.org/u/zimbatm)
#### Post date: [July 24, 2018, 11:44am UTC](https://discourse.nixos.org/t/the-nix-cache-is-now-much-faster-for-users-outside-of-north-america-and-europe/496/4 "2018-07-24T11:44:23Z")
@vcunat: can you try to use [https://nix-cache.s3.amazonaws.com](https://nix-cache.s3.amazonaws.com) directly? According to [https://github.com/NixOS/nixos-org-configurations/blob/master/terraform/cache.tf#L9](https://github.com/NixOS/nixos-org-configurations/blob/master/terraform/cache.tf#L9) it’s the underlying S3 bucket for the binary cache.
---
### Author:  [@grahamc](https://discourse.nixos.org/u/grahamc)
#### Post date: [July 24, 2018, 12:09pm UTC](https://discourse.nixos.org/t/the-nix-cache-is-now-much-faster-for-users-outside-of-north-america-and-europe/496/5 "2018-07-24T12:09:41Z")
Something in general seems very weird about routing to your network. For example, it doesn’t work from here.
Maybe you should contact your ISP?
---
### Author:  [@vcunat](https://discourse.nixos.org/u/vcunat)
#### Post date: [July 24, 2018, 12:09pm UTC](https://discourse.nixos.org/t/the-nix-cache-is-now-much-faster-for-users-outside-of-north-america-and-europe/496/6 "2018-07-24T12:09:59Z")
Nope. Ping ~125ms. No AAAA records and the (single) A record has TTL 5s (!) – that’s nauseating for me as an implementer of a DNS caching server.
---
### Author:  [@vcunat](https://discourse.nixos.org/u/vcunat)
#### Post date: [July 24, 2018, 12:13pm UTC](https://discourse.nixos.org/t/the-nix-cache-is-now-much-faster-for-users-outside-of-north-america-and-europe/496/7 "2018-07-24T12:13:37Z")
That’s a different network and a different ISP. For the routing issue to/from you, I contacted the ISP on Friday morning, as it seemed still broken the same way (no response so far). In that network my ping to [cache.nixos.org](http://cache.nixos.org) is \< 10ms.
EDIT: fortunately my [hydra.nixos.org](http://hydra.nixos.org) slaves are in _this_ network where [cache.nixos.org](http://cache.nixos.org) is fast (only `{t4a,t4b}.cunat.cz` ATM, hopefully also `t2m` soon).
---
### Author:  [@grahamc](https://discourse.nixos.org/u/grahamc)
#### Post date: [July 24, 2018, 12:43pm UTC](https://discourse.nixos.org/t/the-nix-cache-is-now-much-faster-for-users-outside-of-north-america-and-europe/496/8 "2018-07-24T12:43:44Z")
Run my cloud front script referenced from the [cache.nixos.org](http://cache.nixos.org) and send the results to zimbatm to send to Amine on IRC.
---
### Author:  [@vcunat](https://discourse.nixos.org/u/vcunat)
#### Post date: [July 24, 2018, 1:08pm UTC](https://discourse.nixos.org/t/the-nix-cache-is-now-much-faster-for-users-outside-of-north-america-and-europe/496/9 "2018-07-24T13:08:02Z")
Oh, that plain URL serves contents now ❤ and even useful. Sent [http://ix.io/1ifL](http://ix.io/1ifL) to #nixos-dev `aminechikhaoui`.
---
### Author:  [@vcunat](https://discourse.nixos.org/u/vcunat)
#### Post date: [July 30, 2018, 1:13pm UTC](https://discourse.nixos.org/t/the-nix-cache-is-now-much-faster-for-users-outside-of-north-america-and-europe/496/10 "2018-07-30T13:13:00Z")
So, they apparently special-cased my router’s IPs (which I sent trace from), but my actual machine with NixOS seems unaffected by the change :-/ EDIT: [http://ix.io/1iKy](http://ix.io/1iKy)
What about fixing larger ranges? For IPv4 whois says [the ISP](https://cesnet.cz) has the whole `195.113.0.0/16` block (they should be all in CZ). For IPv6 whois says `2001:718::/32` but please _at least_ the /64! _I would think that Amazon technicians would figure out by themselves that /64 is co-located on the same continent, but apparently not._
---
### Author:  [@vcunat](https://discourse.nixos.org/u/vcunat)
#### Post date: [October 4, 2018, 1:28pm UTC](https://discourse.nixos.org/t/the-nix-cache-is-now-much-faster-for-users-outside-of-north-america-and-europe/496/11 "2018-10-04T13:28:52Z")
@grahamc: this is changing now? I see:
```auto
cache.nixos.org. -> v2.shared.global.fastly.net.
```
The regression of not having IPv6 is temporary? I’d think that [they do support it](https://www.fastly.com/blog/ipv6-fastly). We reportedly have some [IPv6-only users](https://github.com/NixOS/nixos-org-configurations/issues/29#issuecomment-386821522).
EDIT: proof
```auto
$ kdig cdn-fastly.deb.debian.org AAAA +short
prod.debian.map.fastly.net.
2a04:4e42:1b::204
```
EDIT2: I was reminded that that there’s a DNS catch – authoritative nameservers for `fastly.net` zone have no AAAA records, so you still need to use a resolver that has IPv4 access (or forward to one such). Fortunately, that can be worked around by using one of the good public resolvers that are available nowadays.
---
### Author:  [@grahamc](https://discourse.nixos.org/u/grahamc)
#### Post date: [October 4, 2018, 2:47pm UTC](https://discourse.nixos.org/t/the-nix-cache-is-now-much-faster-for-users-outside-of-north-america-and-europe/496/12 "2018-10-04T14:47:44Z")
I believe we’re working on this now, I’m thinking we’ll be able to fix it pretty soon. Sorry!
---
### Author:  [@vcunat](https://discourse.nixos.org/u/vcunat)
#### Post date: [October 4, 2018, 3:04pm UTC](https://discourse.nixos.org/t/the-nix-cache-is-now-much-faster-for-users-outside-of-north-america-and-europe/496/13 "2018-10-04T15:04:16Z")
Not a problem (for myself). I just noticed this when re-checking my routing problem (above) that regressed again during the past several days, and I was surprised it’s now it’s good again but not even Amazon.
---
### Author:  [@rnhmjoj](https://discourse.nixos.org/u/rnhmjoj)
#### Post date: [July 29, 2021, 8:11am UTC](https://discourse.nixos.org/t/the-nix-cache-is-now-much-faster-for-users-outside-of-north-america-and-europe/496/14 "2021-07-29T08:11:17Z")
[cache.nixos.org](http://cache.nixos.org) seems to work in a IPv6-only environment, now:
```plaintext
$ curl -6 cache.nixos.org -Iv
* Trying 2a04:4e42:39::729:80...
* Connected to cache.nixos.org (2a04:4e42:39::729) port 80 (#0)
> HEAD / HTTP/1.1
> Host: cache.nixos.org
> User-Agent: curl/7.76.1
> Accept: */*
>
* Mark bundle as not supporting multiuse
< HTTP/1.1 200 OK
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
```
We’re still not getting “Yay! IPv6 is supported!” on [https://ipv6.watch](https://ipv6.watch) because [mobile.nixos.org](http://mobile.nixos.org) is hosted on github, sigh.