How to create a local APT repository?

I would like to build my own local repository on my LAN, so that machines on the LAN can update and upgrade from it. I want to download the packages and store them on my local server so that I can update, upgrade, install, etc, from it without using the internet.

From the Ubuntu Help wiki:

There are 4 steps to setting up a simple repository for yourself

1.Install dpkg-dev
2.Put the packages in a directory
3.Create a script that will scan the packages and create a file apt-get update can read
4. Add a line to your sources.list pointing at your repository

Install dpkg-dev

Type in a terminal

sudo apt-get install dpkg-dev

The Directory

Create a directory where you will keep your packages. For this example, we'll use /usr/local/mydebs.

sudo mkdir -p /usr/local/mydebs

Now move your packages into the directory you've just created.

Previously downloaded Packages are generally stored on your system in the /var/cache/apt/archives directory. If you have installed apt-cacher you will have additional packages stored in its /packages directory.

The Script update-mydebs

It's a simple three liner:

#! /bin/bash
 cd /usr/local/mydebs
 dpkg-scanpackages . /dev/null | gzip -9c > Packages.gz

Cut and paste the above into gedit, and save it as update-mydebs in ~/bin. (the tilde '~' means your home directory. If ~/bin does not exist, create it: Ubuntu will put that directory in your PATH. It's a good place to put personal scripts). Next, make the script executable:

chmod u+x ~/bin/update-mydebs

How the script works:

dpkg-scanpackages looks at all the packages in mydebs, and the output is compressed and written to a file (Packages.gz) that apt-get update can read (see below for a reference that explains this in excruciating detail). /dev/null is an empty file; it is a substitute for an override file which holds some additional information about the packages, which in this case is not really needed. See deb-override(5) if you want to know about it.

Sources.list

add the line

deb file:/usr/local/mydebs ./

to your /etc/apt/sources.list, and you're done.

CD Option

You can burn the directory containing the debs to a CD and use that as a repository as well (good for sharing between computers). To use the CD as a repository, simply run

sudo apt-cdrom add

Using the Repository

Whenever you put a new deb in the mydebs directory, run

sudo update-mydebs
sudo apt-get update

Now your local packages can be manipulated with Synaptic, aptitude and the apt commands: apt-get, apt-cache, etc. When you attempt to apt-get install, any dependencies will be resolved for you, as long as they can be met.

Badly made packages will probably fail, but you won't have endured dpkg hell.

*To make an offline Repository Over LAN *

Install a Local Apache Webserver

# apt-get install apache2

By default, Debian's Apache package will set up a website under /var/www on your system. For our purposes, that's fine, so there's no reason to do anything more. You can easily test it by pointing your favorite browser at http://localhost You should see the default post-installation web page which is actually stored in /var/www/index.html


Create a Debian Package Repository Directory

chose to create a directory /var/www/debs for this. Under it, you should create "architecture" directories, one for each architecture you need to support. If you're using just one computer (or type of computer), then you'll only need one -- typically "i386" for 32-bit systems or "amd64" for 64 bit. If you are using some other architecture, I'll assume you probably already know about this. Now just copy the ".deb" package files for a given architecture into the appropriate directories. If you now point your favorite web browser at http://localhost/debs/amd64 (for example) you'll see a listing of the packages for 64 bit systems.


Create a Packages.gz file

Now we need to create a catalog file for APT to use. This is done with a utility called "dpkg-scanpackages". Here's the commands I use to update the AMD64 packages on my LAN:

# cd /var/www/debs/

# dpkg-scanpackages amd64 | gzip -9c > amd64/Packages.gz

Make the repository known to APT

Now the only thing left to do is to let APT know about your repository. You do this by updating your /etc/apt/sources.list file. You'll need an entry like this one:

deb http://localhost/debs/ amd64/

I used the actual hostname of my system instead of localhost -- this way the code is the same for all of the computers on my LAN, but localhost will do just fine if you are running just one computer.
Now, update APT:

# apt-get update