lighttpd + debarchiver + dput: very good combination for local archives

I've grown pretty much accustomed to cowbuilder. In fact, I nearly build all my packages this way. I seldom have lots of coding/testing to do on my packages, so I don't want to clutter my machine with loads of unneeded build-depends... Especially when it comes to java packages. And the thing is that the current version of batik does not build with versions 1.5 and 1.6 of Sun's Java: an earlier one is apparently necessary (I don't have time to dig into this yet). So, I need a cowbuilder with sun-j2sdk1.4. As the latter is not on public archives, cowbuilder will not find it and fail. Hence, the need for a private personal archive. I found the combination of lighttpd, debarchiver and dput very convenient to setup and keep a personal archive. It is the combination that needs the less configuration, and just works !

First, install lighttpd, dput and debarchiver. I used /var/local/debian as my local repository root, so I made sure the directory existed and that I had write access on it with my normal user. Then, configuration of debarchiver; you only need to modify two lines in /etc/debarchiver.conf:

$destdir = "/var/local/debian/dists";
$inputdir = "/var/local/debian/incoming";

Running debarchiver as a normal user once creates the directories, so you don't need to bother about that yourself. You probably should also modify the line containing @mailtos if you want dak-like email notices. I used the folllowing:

@mailtos = ('root@localhost');

Next step is to make dput aware of this local repository. Here is the relevant part of my $HOME/.dput.cf:

[local]
fqdn = localhost
incoming = /var/local/debian/incoming
method = local
run_dinstall = 0
post_upload_command = debarchiver -x

The -x is very important as is asks debarchiver to rebuild the package index, so your packages are available immediately. The last bit now is to make lighttpd serve the repository. I simply symlinked /var/local/debian into /var/www, and now I use that in my sources.list:

deb http://localhost/debian unstable main contrib non-free

And everything works perfectly well ! Very easy to install and configure.