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The Debian package management system (called Advanced Packaging Tool or APT) is by far the most well-designed and is one of the top killer features on the Linux platform.

This short Howto describes howto establish a Debian package repository for home-grown deb-packages or like (could be used for Ubuntu as well, since Ubuntu uses the Debian package management system).

Establish repository structure
Create the repository structure in a directory. E.g. in ~/public_html directory exposed to the web.


cd public_html
mkdir my-repository
cd my-repository
mkdir binary
mkdir source


Copy your deb-packages into the repository

Like this
cp src/bzr_0.11-1.1_all.deb public_html/my-repository/binary/


Install the tools to be able to create a repository index

sudo aptitude install dpkg-dev


Create a repository index
cd my-repository
dpkg-scanpackages binary /dev/null | gzip -9c > binary/Packages.gz
dpkg-scansources source /dev/null | gzip -9c > source/Sources.gz

Using the repository


# Add these two lines into the /etc/apt/sources.list
deb http://mediakey.dk/~cc/my-repository binary/
deb-src http://mediakey.dk/~cc/my-repository source/


Feel free to comment – easier methods and tips are more than welcome

For a more professional package management setup, use reprepro

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