Skip to content

Creating a Debian Repository

Introduction

I am a co-designer of the MySecureShell project. The problem is that getting your project accepted in the official Debian/Ubuntu repositories requires significant effort. Therefore, while waiting, we decided to create our own repository. Here, I will describe the steps to create your own repository.

Preparation

This article assumes that the packages to be made available on the repository are already generated. Assuming the package is called "mysecureshell", you should have the following files:

  • mysecureshell.orig.tar.gz
  • mysecureshell.diff.gz
  • mysecureshell.dsc
  • mysecureshell.changes
  • mysecureshell.deb

Repository Generation

Generating the Structure

First, you need to generate the repository tree structure with the following commands:

1
mkdir -p /var/www/mss/debian/dists/testing/main/{binary-i386,source}

You need to copy your package files to your repository:

1
2
cp mysecureshell_1.0.dsc mysecureshell_1.0_i386.deb /var/www/mss/debian/dists/testing/main/binary-i386/
cp mysecureshell.diff.gz mysecureshell.dsc mysecureshell.orig.tar.gz mysecureshell.orig.changes /var/www/mss/debian/dists/testing/main/source

Generating Repository Files

Then you need to generate the two files Packages.gz and Sources.gz required for the repository:

1
2
3
cd /var/www/mss/debian/dists/testing/main
dpkg-scanpackages binary-i386 /dev/null dists/testing/main/ | gzip -f9 > binary-i386/Packages.gz
dpkg-scansources source /dev/null dists/testing/main/ | gzip -f9 > source/Sources.gz

Generating Description Files

These two files must be regenerated every time you need to put a new version of your package on the repository.

Finally, you need to create two description files for your repository. The first file should be placed in the binary-i386 directory, called Release, and should contain:

1
2
3
4
5
6
Archive: testing
Version: 1.0
Component: main
Origin: MySecureShell
Label: mysecureshell
Architecture: i386

The second file should be placed in the source directory, also called Release, and should contain:

1
2
3
4
5
6
Archive: testing
Version: 1.0
Component: main
Origin: MySecureShell
Label: mysecureshell
Architecture: source

Your Debian repository is now ready! Now you just need to deploy it on your HTTP server (I'll let you do that ;-)).

Usage

Creating a Debian package repository is fine, but you need to know how to use it.

Users who want to use your repository need to add one of the following two lines to their /etc/apt/sources.list file:

1
2
deb http://mysecureshell.free.fr/debian testing main
deb-src http://mysecureshell.free.fr/debian testing main

Then the procedure is the same as usual for the package management system to know all the packages available on your repositories:

1
apt-get update

Finally, installing a package from the repository is done with the usual command for all Debian users:

1
apt-get install mysecureshell

References

http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/repository-howto/repository-howto.fr.html
http://www.debianaddict.org/article31.html