• RunningYourOwnUbuntuPackageRepository

Running Your Own Ubuntu Package Repository

A step-by-step guide to creating your own package repository so you have somewhere to distribute your own packages.

Prerequisites

• A domain name that you can add subdomains to.

• A virtual machine running Ubuntu. I used 8.04.

• At least one package to upload.

• About 30 minutes.

Give the package repository somewhere to live

You'll need to store all your packages somewhere on your virtual machine.

mkdir -p /var/packages/xeriom/{hardy,gutsy}

Set up the packages subdomain

Add an A record to the DNS zone for your domain pointing to your virtual machines IP address. You can use any subdomain you like - I use packages.xeriom.net.

Install Apache and add a virtual host for the subdomain pointing to your packages root.

sudo apt-get install apache
nano -w /etc/apache2/sites-available/packages.xeriom.net

Add the following configuration

<VirtualHost *>
        ServerAdmin support@xeriom.net
        ServerName packages.xeriom.net
        DocumentRoot /var/packages
        ServerSignature Email

        <Directory /var/packages>
                Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
                AllowOverride None
                Order allow,deny
                allow from all
        </Directory>
</VirtualHost>

Then enable the site and reload the Apache configuration.

sudo a2ensite packages.xeriom.net
sudo /etc/init.d/apache force-reload

Repository generation

Next we add a Package.gz generation command to the root crontab so it's trivial to add new packages.

sudo crontab -e -u root

*/5 * * * * cd /var/packages/xeriom && /usr/bin/dpkg-scanpackages . /dev/null |gzip -9c > /var/packages/xeriom/hardy/Packages.gz
*/5 * * * * cd /var/packages/xeriom && /usr/bin/dpkg-scanpackages . /dev/null |gzip -9c > /var/packages/xeriom/gutsy/Packages.gz

Adding a package

Move the package to the correct directory under your package repository and wait for the Package.gz generation task to run.

sudo mv ~/packages/debs/xeriom-quux-0.0-1.deb /var/packages/xeriom/hardy

Local configuration

Configure your local apt sources to use the new repository by editing /etc/apt/sources.list to include the following lines.

deb file:///var/packages/xeriom hardy

If you're using Gutsy replace "hardy" in the above lines with "gutsy".

Now try installing from the repository.

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install your-package

Using your repository

To use your shiny new repository on a remote box edit sources.list to include the following line.

deb http://packages.xeriom.net/xeriom hardy/

Of course, replace packages.xeriom.net with your chosen subdomain and /xeriom with the path to your repository from the package VirtualHost document root. Note that the trailing slash on hardy/ is necessary.

Now just update your apt cache and install away.

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install xeriom-god