Howto create your own Ubuntu repository
Friday, 11th September 2009, 2225hrs · jw · Linux | Debian
Ubuntu and Debian packages are all bundled in something what is called a repository. Some people, like me, create their own:
Note:
My repository links with the Jaunty distribution (that is Ubuntu 9.04). Your can connect yours to any other, like Debians experimental repository.
First create your own repository.
My repository is accessible over the web, so I installed it on my web server:
user@box:~$ cd /var/www/
user@box:/var/www$ sudo mkdir packages
user@box:/var/www$ cd packages/
In this /var/www/packages we will create a pool, the 'jaunty' distribution and the cache directories:
user@box:/var/www/packages$ sudo mkdir -p pool/main
user@box:/var/www/packages$ sudo mkdir -p dists/jaunty/main/binary-i386
user@box:/var/www/packages$ sudo mkdir .cache
Now two files need to be created. The first one is the apt-release.conf. Make sure that it looks like:
APT::FTPArchive::Release::Codename "jaunty";
APT::FTPArchive::Release::Origin "elevenbits.com";
APT::FTPArchive::Release::Components "main";
APT::FTPArchive::Release::Label "ElevenBits Ubuntu Repository";
APT::FTPArchive::Release::Architectures "i386";
APT::FTPArchive::Release::Suite "jaunty;
The second file is called apt-ftparchive.conf. This one should look like:
Dir {
ArchiveDir ".";
CacheDir "./.cache";
};
Default {
Packages::Compress ". gzip bzip2";
Contents::Compress ". gzip bzip2";
};
TreeDefault {
BinCacheDB "packages-$(SECTION)-$(ARCH).db";
Directory "pool/$(SECTION)";
Packages "$(DIST)/$(SECTION)/binary-$(ARCH)/Packages";
Contents "$(DIST)/Contents-$(ARCH)";
};
Tree "dists/jaunty" {
Sections "main";
Architectures "i386";
}
After you'd created these file your system should look like this:
user@box:/var/www/packages$ ls -al
total 28
drwxr-xr-x 5 root root 4096 Aug 14 13:32 .
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 Aug 14 13:22 ..
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Aug 14 13:26 .cache
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 427 Aug 14 13:32 apt-ftparchive.conf
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 282 Aug 14 13:30 apt-release.conf
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 Aug 14 13:26 dists
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 Aug 14 13:26 pool
Add your own packages and update the repository.
Here the yourpackage package version 1.0 is copied into the new (empty) repository:
user@box:~$ cd /var/www/packages/pool/main
user@box:/var/www/packages/pool/main$ sudo cp ~/yourpackage_1.0_all.deb .
Now the repo needs to be initialized. This you can do using these commands:
user@box:~$ cd /var/www/packages
user@box:/var/www/packages$ sudo apt-ftparchive generate apt-ftparchive.conf
pool/main: 1 files 9900B 0s
Done Packages, Starting contents.
dists/jaunty/Contents-i386: 1 files 9900B 0s
Done. 9900B in 1 archives. Took 0s
user@box:/var/www/packages$ apt-ftparchive -c apt-release.conf release dists/jaunty | sudo tee dists/jaunty/Release
Architectures: i386
Codename: jaunty
Components: main
Date: Mon, 17 Aug 2009 14:16:41 UTC
Label: ElevenBits Ubuntu Repository
Origin: elevenbits.com
Suite: jaunty
MD5Sum:
1d25efc884e5bbfc32eeba74771e322e 536 main/binary-i386/Packages
574c2e304fb14272b8f70355e93fbe80 416 main/binary-i386/Packages.bz2
3a0cbc2e4a38e40c8182451c85de1251 390 main/binary-i386/Packages.gz
SHA1:
949b9e9045f7698cd64abd4c1fa2261eb5d22f82 536 main/binary-i386/Packages
6d5d5c841a8890b4491650f4f360d53158d16cc0 416 main/binary-i386/Packages.bz2
eda59ba70dc9e9d65cf92076e33cb589a07de564 390 main/binary-i386/Packages.gz
SHA256:
b30b4e68d8928785d132dbdc6bb4158e75e907e07f00a3b8d206030236b8f94a 536 main/binary-i386/Packages
38b855ab6e0ce3111f986f26347871827e5e461af9b29b8ccf12773560f63caf 416 main/binary-i386/Packages.bz2
1d1aec4f2cff1a3b71212083aabfc3f2003c88b70f1f0a2ef32bfbb94c2aa879 390 main/binary-i386/Packages.gz
After this, the repository is ready to be used. See http://localhost/packages to make sure.
Note:
Remember to re-initialize the repo each time the /var/www/packages is altered.
Enable the repository on your client machines.
On the Ubuntu machines that need access to your repository, use
sudo vim /etc/apt/sources.list
to add in the repository address:
deb http://ww.xx.yy.zz/packages jaunty main
where ww.xx.yy.zz is the address where your server lives.
From now on the system has access to our own private repository. Cool, no?