minippa

This project provides a single-binary executable that acts as a Debian package server.

Installation

Pick the one you like:

1. cargo install minippa
2. Download the latest binary directly from the latest release
3. Download a DEB package from the latest release

The DEB package contains a systemd service, which should slightly simplify your setup.

Configuration

The app reads the config file from:

1. "$PWD/config.toml" in debug mode
2. "/etc/minippa.toml" in release mode

Here's an example of what must be inside:

port = 4242
token = "sekr3t"
dir = "/data-dir"

Then generate a GPG key with minippa --generate-key. The key that it generates is, of course, random every time but the metadata is static (email = "owner@this-repo.org" and name = "Owner Name").

Then run the binary. It will start listening for incoming requests on "localhost:4242" (so you need a reverse proxy, something like Caddy or NGINX) and by sending packages to the /upload endpoint you'll import them:

$ curl -F "wget-1.2.3.deb=@wget-1.2.3.deb" -H "Token: sekr3t" "https://external-name"
Package has been successfully processed

Where:

1. https://external-name is the URL of your machine
2. -F "foo=@bar" means "create a chunk called foo and inside it attach a file called bar"
3. -H "Token: ..." is where you attach a header with the token from your config file. If the token doesn't match, the server will reject your request.

Client

On any client machine that has access to the server via HTTP(S), run as sudo

$ curl https://external-name/install.sh | bash

1. Yes, this server is not only capable of file upload and static file serving but it is also able to generate a dynamic install script. In fact, the only dynamic part there is the hostname that is taken from a request header.
2. The script installs the public GPG key that you previously generated
3. Then it creates an entry in "/etc/apt/sources.list.d/" that points to your server.

Then run apt update and you should see how apt hits your server. Now you can apt install wget (or any of the packages that you uploaded).