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Setting up an APT repository with Reprepro and Apache

Setting up an APT repository with Reprepro and Apache

This post can be considered a continuation of my previous ones:

• How to create a Debian package
• Debian packaging with Pbuilder

Following next steps we will set up a signed Debian repository, using Reprepro and Apache2.

1.- Installing the tools

 root@server:~# apt-get install apache2 dpkg-sig reprepro 

2.- Configuring Apache2 with reprepro

 root@server:~# mkdir -p /var/www/repos/apt/debian 

 ServerName localhost 

 <Directory /var/www/repos/ > 
 # We want the user to be able to browse the directory manually 
 Options Indexes FollowSymLinks Multiviews 
 Order allow,deny 
 Allow from all 
 </Directory> 
 # This syntax supports several repositories, e.g. one for Debian, one for Ubuntu. 
 # Replace * with debian, if you intend to support one distribution only. 
 <Directory "/var/www/repos/apt/*/db/"> 
 Order allow,deny 
 Deny from all 
 </Directory> 
 <Directory "/var/www/repos/apt/*/conf/"> 
 Order allow,deny 
 Deny from all 
 </Directory> 
 <Directory "/var/www/repos/apt/*/incoming/"> 
 Order allow,deny 
 Deny from all 
 </Directory> 

At last, we need to enable repos site configuration in Apache:

 root@server:/etc/apache2/conf-available# a2enconf repos 
 root@server:/etc/apache2/conf-enabled# apache2ctl configtest 
 Syntax OK 
 root@server:/etc/apache2/conf-enabled# service apache2 restart 

3.- Configuring Reprepro

 root@server:~# mkdir -p /var/www/repos/apt/debian/conf 

Now we create the file /var/www/repos/apt/debian/conf/distributions, with the following content:

 Origin: Debian 
 Label: Sid apt repository 
 Codename: sid 
 Architectures: i386 amd64 
 Components: main 
 Description: Apt repository for Debian unstable - Sid 
 DebOverride: override.sid 
 DscOverride: override.sid 
 SignWith: 870B8E2D 

 Origin: Debian 
 Label: Jessie apt repository 
 Codename: jessie 
 Architectures: i386 amd64 
 Components: main 
 Description: Apt repository for Debian testing - Jessie 
 DebOverride: override.jessie 
 DscOverride: override.jessie 
 SignWith: 870B8E2D 

 Origin: Debian 
 Label: Wheezy apt repository 
 Codename: wheezy 
 Architectures: i386 amd64 
 Components: main 
 Description: Apt repository for Debian stable - Wheezy 
 DebOverride: override.wheezy 
 DscOverride: override.wheezy 
 SignWith: 870B8E2D 

SingWith value, included above, needs to be taken from gpg --list-keys. This will be the key used to sign our packages.

 root@server:~# gpg --list-keys 
 pub 2048R/489CD644 2014-07-15 
 uid Your Name <your_email_address@domain.com> 
 sub 2048R/870B8E2D 2014-07-15 

At last, we create the options file at /var/www/repos/apt/debian/conf/options:

 verbose 
 basedir /var/www/repos/apt/debian 
 ask-passphrase 

Note: We can also override Debian packages control file fields, by creating override files. In our case, for example, we could create /var/www/repos/apt/debian/conf/override.jessie with this content (used for our package named hello):

 hello Priority extra 
 hello Section admin 

4.- Adding a package to the repository

 root@server:/var/www/repos/apt/debian# reprepro includedeb jessie /opt/hello_0.1-1_i386.deb 

This will add our package hello_0.1-1_i386.deb to the APT repository. The command above will ask to insert a password, which is the same we used to sign the package. And, in case we want to remove the package from the repository we can use the following command:

 root@server:/var/www/repos/apt/debian# reprepro remove jessie hello 

5.- Providing the public key to repository users

We need to export our public GPG key to a file, and make it available at the web server so users can download it:

 root@server:~# gpg --armor --output public.gpg.key --export Your Name 
 root@server:~# mkdir /var/www/repos/apt/conf 
 root@server:~# cp public.gpg.key /var/www/repos/apt/conf/ 

6.- Installing packages using the repository

 wget -O - http://YOUR_REPO_SERVER/repos/apt/conf/public.gpg.key | apt-key add - 
 echo "deb http://YOUR_REPO_SERVER/repos/apt/debian jessie main" >> /etc/apt/sources.list 
 apt-get update && apt-get install YOUR_PACKAGE 

7.- Useful commands

References

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