diff --git a/.github/workflows/scripts/qemu-1-setup.sh b/.github/workflows/scripts/qemu-1-setup.sh
index 0278264d9279..a597e3462f04 100755
--- a/.github/workflows/scripts/qemu-1-setup.sh
+++ b/.github/workflows/scripts/qemu-1-setup.sh
@@ -1,77 +1,91 @@
 #!/usr/bin/env bash
 
 ######################################################################
 # 1) setup qemu instance on action runner
 ######################################################################
 
 set -eu
 
 # We've been seeing this script take over 15min to run.  This may or
 # may not be normal.  Just to get a little more insight, print out
 # a message to stdout with the top running process, and do this every
 # 30 seconds.  We can delete this watchdog later once we get a better
 # handle on what the timeout value should be.
 (while [ 1 ] ; do sleep 30 && echo "[watchdog: $(ps -eo cmd --sort=-pcpu  | head -n 2 | tail -n 1)}')]"; done) &
 
+# The default 'azure.archive.ubuntu.com' mirrors can be really slow.
+# Prioritize the official Ubuntu mirrors.
+#
+# The normal apt-mirrors.txt will look like:
+#
+# http://azure.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/       priority:1
+# https://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/    priority:2
+# https://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/   priority:3
+#
+# Just delete the 'azure.archive.ubuntu.com' line.
+sudo sed -i '/azure.archive.ubuntu.com/d' /etc/apt/apt-mirrors.txt
+echo "Using mirrors:"
+cat /etc/apt/apt-mirrors.txt
+
 # install needed packages
 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND="noninteractive"
 sudo apt-get -y update
 sudo apt-get install -y axel cloud-image-utils daemonize guestfs-tools \
   virt-manager linux-modules-extra-$(uname -r) zfsutils-linux
 
 # generate ssh keys
 rm -f ~/.ssh/id_ed25519
 ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -f ~/.ssh/id_ed25519 -q -N ""
 
 # not needed
 sudo systemctl stop docker.socket
 sudo systemctl stop multipathd.socket
 
 # remove default swapfile and /mnt
 sudo swapoff -a
 sudo umount -l /mnt
 DISK="/dev/disk/cloud/azure_resource-part1"
 sudo sed -e "s|^$DISK.*||g" -i /etc/fstab
 sudo wipefs -aq $DISK
 sudo systemctl daemon-reload
 
 sudo modprobe loop
 sudo modprobe zfs
 
 # partition the disk as needed
 DISK="/dev/disk/cloud/azure_resource"
 sudo sgdisk --zap-all $DISK
 sudo sgdisk -p \
  -n 1:0:+16G -c 1:"swap" \
  -n 2:0:0    -c 2:"tests" \
 $DISK
 sync
 sleep 1
 
 # swap with same size as RAM (16GiB)
 sudo mkswap $DISK-part1
 sudo swapon $DISK-part1
 
 # JBOD 2xdisk for OpenZFS storage (test vm's)
 SSD1="$DISK-part2"
 sudo fallocate -l 12G /test.ssd2
 SSD2=$(sudo losetup -b 4096 -f /test.ssd2 --show)
 
 # adjust zfs module parameter and create pool
 exec 1>/dev/null
 ARC_MIN=$((1024*1024*256))
 ARC_MAX=$((1024*1024*512))
 echo $ARC_MIN | sudo tee /sys/module/zfs/parameters/zfs_arc_min
 echo $ARC_MAX | sudo tee /sys/module/zfs/parameters/zfs_arc_max
 echo 1 | sudo tee /sys/module/zfs/parameters/zvol_use_blk_mq
 sudo zpool create -f -o ashift=12 zpool $SSD1 $SSD2 -O relatime=off \
   -O atime=off -O xattr=sa -O compression=lz4 -O sync=disabled \
   -O redundant_metadata=none -O mountpoint=/mnt/tests
 
 # no need for some scheduler
 for i in /sys/block/s*/queue/scheduler; do
   echo "none" | sudo tee $i
 done
 
 # Kill off our watchdog
 kill $(jobs -p)