Dev:Repository Management

This page contains instructions for getting a personal repository set up, and general tips and tricks.

= Setup =

Novice
If you have no interest in setting up your own server, you can always use MyRepoSpace.

Advanced
Cydia uses a Debian APT-like implementation to manage packages.

saurik's explanation
If you have no experience with Debian APT, then you can read saurik's excellent writeup on the subject, which should be more than enough to get you started.

Other explanations
http://patrickmuff.ch/blog/2013/02/15/create-your-own-cydia-repository-on-ubuntu/

https://github.com/WinneonSword/tutorial-repository

Quick and dirty summary
First thing is, obviously, you'll need a web host. Literally it could be anything, like Neocities or GitHub pages.

Repository structure
The basic idea is that you have two files in your server, Packages and Release. These files can be bzipped to save bandwidth (i.e. Packages.bz2 and Release.bz2). Packages contains all of the information related to the different packages on your server (and where to download them, more on that later) and Release contains all of the information related to your server (like the name, description, etc).

If you want to see an example of a typical Packages and Release file, go to your sources in Cydia and find a repository hosted by a 3rd party. Copy-paste the URL in your browser and append Release.bz2</tt> (or Release</tt> if you get a 404) to the end. Same thing applies with Packages</tt>.

.deb files
The Packages</tt> file mentioned earlier points to .deb files in your server that you can download. These are made with dpkg-deb. Manpage here. The idea is that you set up a folder in the way you'd want the files to appear in your filesystem (and the DEBIAN</tt> folder, which would contain your control</tt> file, and optional preinst</tt> and postinst</tt> scripts) when it installs in Cydia, and then you'd use dpkg-deb -b folder_name</tt> to make the package (which will be named folder_name.deb</tt>).

= Custom icon =

Put the file CydiaIcon.png</tt> at the root of your repository.

= Private repos =

The most trivial way to get private repository is to restrict access based on UDID. Cydia sends the user's UDID via the HTTP_X_UNIQUE_ID</tt> HTTP header, so your server could check that against a database in order to ensure that the user has rightful access.

NOTE: Static webhosts like Neocities won't work for private repos. You'll need a server that has some way to let you process requests server-side, e.g. PHP, node.js, or Flask.

PHP implementation
A PHP implementation can be found here.