[How To] Setup local repo server for Linux Mint 18.x

Mint repo server setup

Recently I successfully created  a Linux Mint local repo server. Below are the steps  to create and sync the repo server.

Step 1

Create a Linux mint server with Static IP / DNS  and with  at least 150 GB disk space.  There are lots of tutorials on that, I won’t go through the steps.

Step 2

Install apache webserver and apt mirror packages

sudo apt install apache2 apt-mirror

Step 3

Now, create a directory to save all packages. I’m calling it  “/repo”.

sudo mkdir /repo

Step 4

Edit the apt-mirrors configuration file . The ones highlighted in bold are changed. If you want you can replace the complete file with the one below.

Since this repo will serve both 32bit and 64bit machines, I’ve explicitly mentioned the repos for both.

sudo nano /etc/apt/mirror.list

 ############# config ##################
 #
 # set base_path /var/spool/apt-mirror
 #
 # set mirror_path $base_path/mirror
 # set skel_path $base_path/skel
 # set var_path $base_path/var
 # set cleanscript $var_path/clean.sh
 # set defaultarch <running host architecture>
 # set postmirror_script $var_path/postmirror.sh
 # set run_postmirror 0
 set base_path /repo
 set nthreads 20
 set _tilde 0
 #
 ############# end config ##############

deb-amd64 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial main restricted universe multiverse
deb-amd64 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial-security main restricted universe multiverse
deb-amd64 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial-updates main restricted universe multiverse

deb-i386 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial main restricted universe multiverse
deb-i386 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial-security main restricted universe multiverse
deb-i386 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial-updates main restricted universe multiverse

clean http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu

deb-i386 http://packages.linuxmint.com/ sonya main upstream import
deb-amd64 http://packages.linuxmint.com/ sonya main upstream import

Step 5

Sync the repo. Download time will depend on the internet speed.

sudo apt-mirror

The output will be like this

Downloading 354 index files using 20 threads...
Begin time: Wed Nov 29 13:25:21 2017
[20]... [19]... [18]... [17]... [16]... [15]... [14]... [13]... [12]... [11]... [10]... [9]... [8]... [7]... [6]... [5]... [4]... [3]... [2]... [1]... [0]...
End time: Wed Nov 29 13:29:27 2017

Step 6

To automatically sync in the background, enable the cronjob.  To do so, edit the file below.

sudo nano /etc/cron.d/apt-mirror

Remove # from the line in bold, save and exit.

#
# Regular cron jobs for the apt-mirror package
#
0 4 * * * apt-mirror /usr/bin/apt-mirror > /var/spool/apt-mirror/var/cron.log

Step 7

This step is very important. Make sure you do this change. Change the Document Root to /var/www in apache config file.

/etc/apache2/sites-enabled/000-default.conf

Once done, restart the apache server and check the status

service apache2 restart
service apache2 status

service apache2 status
● apache2.service - LSB: Apache2 web server
 Loaded: loaded (/etc/init.d/apache2; bad; vendor preset: enabled)
 Drop-In: /lib/systemd/system/apache2.service.d
 └─apache2-systemd.conf
 Active: active (running) since Wed 2017-11-29 13:03:48 IST; 3s ago
 Docs: man:systemd-sysv-generator(8)
 Process: 24829 ExecStop=/etc/init.d/apache2 stop (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
 Process: 20682 ExecReload=/etc/init.d/apache2 reload (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
 Process: 24852 ExecStart=/etc/init.d/apache2 start (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
 CGroup: /system.slice/apache2.service
 ├─24869 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start
 ├─24872 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start
 └─24873 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start

Step 8

Once all the packages are downloaded link the repo folders to apache webserver. Use simple names so that its easy to remember when troubleshooting.

cd /var/www

ln -s /repo/mirror/archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ ubuntu
ln -s /repo/mirror/packages.linuxmint.com/ mint
ln -s /repo/mirror/security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ security
ln -s /repo/mirror/archive.canonical.com/ubuntu/ archives

You should be able to view the repos from the web browser if you do http://ip.of.web.server/ubuntu.

That’s all. Server is setup. Now, lets add the files to the mint client.

Client side setup

Edit the file /etc/apt/sources.list.d/official-package-repositories.list

sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.list.d/official-package-repositories.list

Comment out the existing lines and add the following

deb http://ip.of.web.server/mint sonya main upstream import backport
deb http://ip.of.web.server/ubuntu xenial main restricted universe multiverse
deb http://ip.of.web.server/security xenial-security main restricted universe multiverse
deb http://ip.of.web.server/archives xenial partner

Save the file and then run the update.

apt clean && apt update

 

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