How To Setup local repository for linux

Repository server is a best solution when you have a LAN of linux machines and when you dont want to carry your CD/DVD to each machine to install new packages.

So you can assign a repository server containing all the packages to a folder and use FTP to download the packages to your lcoal machine

the following steps are done on the repository server

You need to install FTP server like ProFTP

Create a FTP user account say a user ftpuser

Extract the contents of the CD/DVD to a directory, for Debian Etch they are dists(directory), debian(link pointing to .), pool(directory)

Add the following line to the /etc/apt/sources.list on other machines

deb ftp://ftpuser:password@domain/home/ftpuser/debian etch main  and then

sudo apt-get update

The package will be downloaded on demand from the repo server and installed