Software Repository Mirror

This has been adapted from these instructions

Preparing the Hard Drive

In the directions below we will assume that you have a brand new hard drive. We will be formatting the hard drive (partition) which means that all of the data on the hard drive will be lost. PLEASE MAKE SURE YOU KNOW EXACTLY WHAT YOU ARE DOING IN EACH STEP

To format the partition, we will first need to set the partition type

Determining the Hard Drive Paritition

To format the hard drive, we first to know what "partition" it is using. Ubuntu should automatically mount the hard drive should automatically once you plug it in. To determine run the command:

mount | grep media

Running this on my machine, I see output

/dev/sdb1 on /media/3539-6663 type vfat (rw,nosuid,nodev,uid=1000,gid=1000,shortname=mixed,dmask=0077,utf8=1,showexec,flush,uhelper=udisks)

Which means the /dev/sdb1 is the partition we will need to use.

If you see more than one line in the output then STOP as these directions may not be correct. If you see more than one line here, you probably have more than one external hard drive or flash disk connected. Remove all extra hard drive and rerun the "grep" command. If you still see more than one line, Please contact one of the of the iHRIS developers for more help.

Change The Hard Drive Partition Type

We will need to run the "fdisk" command interactively on the hard drive device. If the parition was /dev/sdb1, the hard drive device is /dev/sdb (remove the number from the partition). Here is a sample interaction. You should type in everything in bold (changing /dev/sdb as neeeded):

litlfred@cumin:/tmp$ sudo fdisk /dev/sdb
Command (m for help): p

Disk /dev/sdb: 1015 MB, 1015808000 bytes
13 heads, 36 sectors/track, 4239 cylinders, total 1984000 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x0008db47

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdb1            2048     1983999      990976    6  FAT16

Command (m for help): t
Selected partition 1
Hex code (type L to list codes): 83
Changed system type of partition 1 to 83 (Linux) 

Command (m for help): p 

Disk /dev/sdb: 1015 MB, 1015808000 bytes
13 heads, 36 sectors/track, 4239 cylinders, total 1984000 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x0008db47 

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdb1            2048     1983999      990976   83  Linux

Command (m for help): w
The partition table has been altered! 

Calling ioctl() to re-read partition table.

WARNING: If you have created or modified any DOS 6.x
partitions, please see the fdisk manual page for additional
information.
Syncing disks.

Formatting The Hard Drive as ext3

Simply do:

sudo mkfs.ext3  /dev/sdb1

Labelling the hard drive

Now we want to make a lablel for our newly formatted hard drive so that we can refer to it easily later:

sudo tune2fs -L ihris /dev/sdb1

Testing

Unplug the hard drive and plug it back in. There should be a USB disk icon on your Desktop with the label "ihris". Also, running:

mount | grep medai

you should see somethine like:

/dev/sdc1 on /media/ihris type ext3 (rw,nosuid,nodev,uhelper=udisks)

Don't worry if your partition has changed from /dev/sdb1 to something else like /dev/sdc1

Creating the Software Repository

You should now have you hard drive prepared and mounted under /media/ihris. If not STOP

Mirroring

We will be mirroring (creating an identical copy of the online ubunto repositories). All of the packages will be saved into a subdirectory of our hard drive which we create with:

sudo mkdir -p /media/ihris/ubunruMirror/mirror

We will also need to install the debmirror software:

sudo apt-get install debmirror

/media/iHRIS/ubuntuMirror/mirrorbuild.sh

Save the script below to /media/ihris/ubuntuMirror/mirrorbuild.sh by copying and pasting with gedit:

sudo gedit  /media/ihris/ubuntuMirror/mirrorbuild.sh

This is what you should copy and paste <source lang='bash'>

1. !/bin/bash
   1. Setting variables with explanations.

basePath="/media/ihris/ubuntuMirror/"

2. Don't touch the user's keyring, have our own instead

export GNUPGHOME=${basePath}keyring

1. Outpath= # Directory to store the mirror in
2. Make this a full path to where you want to mirror the material.

outPath=${basePath}mirror

1. Arch= -a # Architecture. For Ubuntu can be i386, powerpc or amd64.
2. sparc, only starts in dapper, it is only the later models of sparc

arch=i386,amd64

1. Minimum Ubuntu system requires main, restricted
2. Section= -s # Section (One of the following - main/restricted/universe/multiverse).

section=main,restricted,universe

1. Release= -d # Release of the system (Dapper, Edgy, Feisty, Gutsy), and the -updates and -security ( -backports can be added if desired)

release=oneiric,oneiric-updates,oneiric-security,precise,precise-updates,precise-security

1. Server= -h # Server name, minus the protocol and the path at the end
2. CHANGE "*" to equal the mirror you want to create your mirror from. au. in Australia ca. in Canada.
3. This can be found in your own /etc/apt/sources.list file, assuming you have Ubuntu installed.

server=us.archive.ubuntu.com

1. The --nosource option only downloads debs and not deb-src's
2. The --progress option shows files as they are downloaded
3. --source \ in the place of --no-source \ if you want sources also.
4. Start script

debmirror -a $arch --no-source -s $section -h $server -d $release \

               --progress -e http $outPath

</source> Note, when Ubuntu 12.04 (LTS Precise) is soon released, you should comment out the line about the release in the above section.

Trusting the Ubuntu Archives

We also need to create a directory for our key ring We need to set up our mirroring software to trust all of Ubuntu's software archives. This can be done with:

sudo mkdir -p /media/ihris/ubunruMirror/keyring 
sudo  gpg --keyring /usr/share/keyrings/ubuntu-archive-keyring.gpg --export --homedir /media/ihris/ubuntuMirror/keyring/ \
| sudo gpg --no-default-keyring --keyring trustedkeys.gpg --import --homedir /media/ihris/ubuntuMirror/keyring/

sources.list

The file /etc/apt/sources.list tells apt-get where to look for software packages to install.

We will want to have two versions of the sources.list file. One that will use the hard drive (sources.list.harddrive) and one that will use the internet (sources.list.internet). You will need to create a file /etc/apt/sources.list.harddrive

sources.list.internet

The default ubuntu installation assumes that you are connected to the interent. So we will simply copy the existing /etc/apt/sources.list to sources.list.internet

sudo cp /etc/apt/sources.list /etc/apt/sources.list.internet

sources.list.hardrive

We now need to create a version of the sources.list that will use the hard drive.

echo "deb file:///media/ihris/ubuntuMirror/mirror" `lsb_release -cs` "main universe " | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.harddrive

This will only work for Oneiric (11.10) and Precise (12.04)

Downloading the Software Repository

You can now simply use the command

sudo sh /media/iHRIS/ubuntuMirror/mirrorbuild.sh

This is the same command that you can use to update your mirror.

Using the Software Repository

source.list.hardrive as sources.list

Did you copy the /etc/apt/sources.list to /etc/apt/sources.list.internet as described above? If not STOP Let's switch to use the hard drive

sudo cp /etc/apt/sources.list.harddrive /etc/apt/sources.list

Installing Software

First we refresh the list of available packages that apt-get knows about

sudo apt-get -o Dir::Etc::sourceparts="blah" update

Now we can install package XXXXX from our hard drive by:

sudo apt-get -o Dir::Etc::sourceparts="blah" install XXXXX

source.list.internet as sources.list

Now that we are done, we should restore our original /etc/apt/sources.list

sudo cp /etc/apt/sources.list.internet /etc/apt/sources.list