I've having the most frustrating time trying to set up a Debian repository.

I have a signing key, I have a signed InRelease file which points to Package.gz files, which point to my .deb packages.

When I run `apt update`, the repo updates successfully and the signature verifies. But when I run `apt search [packagename]`, it doesn't see my package.

I'm not even sure what to search for since there are no error messages. Anyone else hit this problem with Debian repos?

@micahflee What do "apt show $PKG" and "apt policy $PKG" say? If they also don't show anything about the package, then something is weird, and I've never seen that situation.

@liw @micahflee i’m using too

apt policy $pkgname

see also debug options in apt.conf man page

apt -o Debug::something policy $pkgname

@micahflee does apt even know about the packages available in that specific repo? Look in /var/lib/apt/lists similar to this: https://superuser.com/questions/1073336/list-all-packages-from-a-repository

@dashrb progress! My repo has an InRelease file there, but it does not have a main_binary-amd64_Packages file. For example, the Signal repo has these files:

updates.signal.org_desktop_apt_dists_xenial_InRelease
updates.signal.org_desktop_apt_dists_xenial_main_binary-amd64_Packages

But mine only has the InRelease file. Ok, I've got to figure out why it's not loading the packages.

@micahflee

Are you sure that it is not Packages.gz? Or doesn't that matter?

I checked with an ancient script that is running a local Debian repository, it uses dpkg-scanpackages and dpkg-scansources to create Packages.gz and Sources.gz files, then writes a Release file and signs it.

@repa oh yes, it's Packages.gz, not Package.gz, that was a typo

@repa @micahflee in repo file usually has whatever is there (with hash). you dont have to have the .gz one

Fixed! The problem was that my repo had Packages.gz files, but not uncompressed Packages files. When I added those, apt is now recognizing my packages