This short HOW-TO describes how to setup a repository using reprepro. First choose a directory where you want to store your repository, 1) Configuration: Generate a directory named conf/. Create a file named "distributions" there. Add entries such as: Origin: Debian Label: Debian-All Suite: stable Codename: woody Version: 3.0 Architectures: i386 sparc mips source Components: main non-free contrib Description: Debian woody + woody/non-US + woody/updates #Update: debian non-US security #SignWith: yes Or: Origin: PCPool Label: PCPool Suite: stable Codename: pcpool Version: 3.0 Architectures: i386 source Components: main non-free contrib bad protected server UDebComponents: main Description: PCPool specific (or backported) packages SignWith: yes DebOverride: override UDebOverride: override DscOverride: srcoverride Multiple entries are separated with an empty line. The codename of the distribution is specified with Codename:. It is the primary name of a distribution and e.g. used to determine the directory to create and put the index files into. Update: is described later. If SignWith: is there, it will try to sign it: either use "yes" or give something gpg can use to identify the key you want to use. The other fields are copied into the appropriate "Release" files generated. 2) Adding files to the repository: To add a .deb manually: reprepro -Vb . includedeb pcpool /var/cache/apt/archives/libc6_2.2.5-11.8_i386.deb to add a .changes file: reprepro -Vb . include pcpool test.changes Hint: you can add "-C component", "-A architecture", "-S section" and "-P priority" to give additional hints where it should go. Note -A will not overwrite something to go into another architecture, but simply ignore those not fitting, only "Architecture: all" packages are placed exactly in these architecture. Helps when it is not available for all architectures and each binary version needs a fitting version of the "Architecture: all" package. 3) Removing files from the repository: reprepro -Vb . remove pcpool libc6 to only remove from a specific component or architecture: reprepro -Vb . -C main -A i386 remove pcpool libc6 4) Getting information about a package: To see in which architectures/components a package exists and which version it uses. reprepro -b . list pcpool libc6 5) Override-Files: When including packages via "includedeb", "includedsc" or "include" the applicable override file from the distribution it is placed into is used. The file given by DebOverride: for ".deb"s, the file given by UDebOverride: for ".udeb"s and the file given by DscOverride: for ".dsc"s. If the filename starts with a slash (/) it is not relative to the conf directory given with --conf, defaulting to "conf" in the current directory (or in the directory specified with --basedir, if that is given). Note that the Format is those of apt-ftparchive's ExtraOverride, not the old format. An (stupid) example line for that file would be: libc6 Priority extra 6) importing from upstream repositories: The file conf/updates can contain entries like this: Name: debian Method: http://ftp.debian.de/debian VerifyRelease: F1D53D8C4F368D5D Name: non-US Method: http://ftp.debian.de/debian-non-US Suite: */non-US Architectures: i386 sparc mips source Components: main>main non-free>non-free contrib>contrib UDebComponents: VerifyRelease: B629A24C38C6029A Name: security Method: http://security.debian.org/debian-security Suite: */updates UDebComponents: VerifyRelease: F1D53D8C4F368D5D Which of those are used is determined by the Update: line in the description in conf/distributions. When Suite:, Architecture:, Components: or UDebComponents: are not given, those of the distribution to be added are used. The suite of the target can be used as "*" in the Suite: here. VerifyRelease: tells which GPG key to use checking the Release.gpg. Add a "IgnoreRelease: yes" to ignore any Release files. To import components in other components, use the source>target syntax. Method: describes an apt-method, for which the programs from /usr/lib/apt/methods are used... To update everything possible do: reprepro -b . update To only update some distributions do: reprepro -b . update woody There is no support for updating a distribution from only specific upstreams yet. You will have to edit conf/distributions for that. The value for VerifyRelease: can be retrieved using: gpg --with-colons --list-keys =============================================================================== The following is from V. Stanley Jaddoe . Make sure to include all sources when allowing everyone access to software only available under GPL to you. Well, you should always supply sources, but in some cases not doing so might cause you trouble. Using reprepro with apache2 (sarge, etch, sid) This example assumes the reprepro repository is under /srv/reprepro/ and that apache2 has been correctly installed and configured. The first step is to create a virtual directory called debian/. Assuming your server runs the host http://www.example.com/, the web repository will be placed at http://www.example.com/debian/. Create an apache2 config file in the conf dir of your reprepro repository, using the following command: cat > /srv/reprepro/conf/apache.conf << EOF Alias /debian /srv/reprepro/ Options +Indexes AllowOverride None order allow,deny allow from all EOF To enable this virtual directory, a symlink has to be created. This can be done using the following command: ln -s /srv/reprepro/conf/apache.conf /etc/apache2/conf.d/reprepro.conf The second step is setting the permissions in such a way that web users can browse the repository, but cannot view the reprepro specific configuration. This can be done using the following commands: chown -R root:root /srv/reprepro/ chmod 755 /srv/reprepro/ chown -R root:www-data /srv/reprepro/dists/ /srv/reprepro/pool/ chmod 750 /srv/reprepro/* Reload apache2: /etc/init.d/apache2 reload Check if the repository is viewable by web-users, by pointing your browser to http://www.example.com/debian/ If there are no problems with your reprepro repository and the apache2 configuration, you should see two directories, dists/ and pool/. The last step is to add this new repository to your sources.list. This is as easy as: echo "deb http://www.example.com/debian pcpool main non-free contrib" >> /etc/apt/sources.list