What tools are there to create and manage an apt repository?

Solution 1:

reprepro is a good tool, but it's likely overkill for what you're doing. I'd recommend looking at the apt-utils package. It contains the tool apt-ftparchive which is perfect for maintaining a reasonably sized internal repository.

See here for all the options and links to good howtos.

Solution 2:

under documentroot on your webserver

mkdir myrepo

copy all the .deb files to the myrepo folder

cd myrepo

dpkg-scanpackages ./ /dev/null | gzip > Packages.gz

Using the repository:

Add to /etc/apt/sources.list

deb http://webserver/myrepo/ ./

Solution 3:

This looks promising (and free too). aptly http://www.aptly.info/