There is an alternative to launchpad for a deb repository?

I'm curious to know if there is a real alternative to Launchpad for a developer who wants to build his own repository.

Solution 1:

A repository is just series of directories. It's commonly on a web server (over http) but it doesn't have to be. The full process of doing this is long:

• Create and upload a GPG signing key
• Build and sign your packages
• Set up a web server to host these things
• Use something like Dak or Reprepro to set up the directory structure and export that to the webserver.

The result is a real repository that you control. The difference from a LP repo is there's no shortcut for adding your signing key to the client computers. You'll have to get them to use the old-fashioned method:

wget -q http://path/to/key.asc -O- | sudo apt-key add -

And then add the repo (add-apt-repository can add http://... addresses).

And even after that, you need to guarantee uptime. If you can't keep the repo up you're going to cause 404 warnings on clients' machines. Nobody likes that.

Debian has the best documentation on how to do this:

• https://wiki.debian.org/HowToSetupADebianRepository
• https://wiki.debian.org/SettingUpSignedAptRepositoryWithReprepro