Introduction

With Launchpad's Personal Package Archives (PPA), you can build and publish binary Ubuntu packages for multiple architectures simply by uploading an Ubuntu source package to Launchpad.

• Important: This guide does not show you how to create source packages. You should only continue if you are familiar with Debian-based packaging as used by Ubuntu. To learn how to package for Ubuntu, follow [https://wiki.ubuntu.com/PackagingGuide The Ubuntu Packaging Guide].

Your PPA gives you:

• An APT repository of up to 1 gigabyte for material licensed in accordance with the [wiki:PPATermsofUse PPA Terms of Use].
• Binary packages built for x86 and AMD64 architectures against Ubuntu.
• A web front-end where Launchpad users can browse and search for your packages.

Before you create your PPA, you need to:

• [:BecomingAnUbuntero:become an Ubuntero] (i.e. have signed the Ubuntu Community Code of Conduct)

• have [:ImportingYourOpenPGPKey:imported your PGP key] to your Launchpad account.

Activating your PPA

Step 1: Visit your Launchpad [https://launchpad.net/people/+me/ profile page].

attachment:name.png

Step 2: Click Activate PPA in the Actions menu, in the left-hand column of the page.

attachment:activate-ppa.png

Step 3: Read the terms of service.

Step 4: Enter a description of your PPA, then click Add if you agree to the terms of service.

You are now ready to upload a source package to your PPA.

Creating a team PPA

If you are an administrator of a Launchpad team, you can create a team PPA by applying the same steps as you would for creating a personal PPA but on your team's profile page. Any build failures from a team PPA will be sent to the team's contact address or, if none is set, to each member of the team.

Creating your source package

When creating a source package for use with PPA, you need to consider:

Versioning: If you're packaging an alternative version of a package already available in Ubuntu's repositories, you should ensure your package supersedes the current Ubuntu version. We recommend using a suffix of ~ppan (where n is your package's revision number). This will also ensure that a newer Ubuntu version will supercede your PPA version.

Example: if you're packaging an experimental version of MyApp1.0, name the first version of your package myapp_1.0.1-0ubuntu1~ppa1.

However, if you're building an alternative version of a package already in the primary Ubuntu archive, you should also increment the Ubuntu package version. This will also ensure that your package supercedes the current Ubuntu package because a tilde effectively takes a package version backwards.

Example: If you're building an updated version of a current package ubuntuapp_1.2.3-4ubuntu5 then your package should be named ubuntuapp_1.2.3-4ubuntu6~ppa1. This means your package will supercede the current one. If a new package called ubuntuapp_1.2.3-4ubuntu6 later appears in the primary Ubuntu archive then it will supercede your package.

Dependencies: Your package's Build-Depends will always be satisfied using:

• the most recent versions of the packages in the PPA you're uploading to
• all sections of the primary Ubuntu archive - i.e. main, restricted, universe and multiverse.

Note: If you're already familiar with uploading to the Ubuntu primary archive, you should note that PPA builds do not have any build dependency restrictions, unlike a build in the primary Ubuntu archive. If you want to build the same package in the primary Ubuntu archive at a later point you may need to revise the package's component and/or pocket.

Step 1: Edit ~/.dput.cf and add something like:

• [my-ppa]
  fqdn = ppa.launchpad.net
  method = ftp
  incoming = ~your-launchpad-id/ubuntu/
  login = anonymous
  allow_unsigned_uploads = 0

Step 2: To upload to a team PPA, such as ~phototeam, use something similar to ~/.dput.cf:

• [phototeam-ppa]
  fqdn = ppa.launchpad.net
  method = ftp
  incoming = ~phototeam/ubuntu/
  login = anonymous
  allow_unsigned_uploads = 0

Now you can upload to your PPA or to the phototeam's PPA (only if you are member of it).

Step 3: Upload signed sources only (no binaries), using

• dput my-ppa P_V_source.changes

or alternatively for the team PPA

• dput phototeam-ppa P_V_source.changes

replacing P with the name of the package, and V with the version number.

If you get a message that there is no signature on your changes file, either run debuild -S -sa -k<yourkeyid> or debsign P_V_source.changes.

• Note: If you're building an alternative version of a package already in the primary Ubuntu archive, build your source package using debuild -S -sd. If you're building an entirely new package whose orig.tar.gz is not yet in the Ubuntu primary archive, build the source package with debuild -S -sa.

  Note: If you get error when signing the changes file (clearsign failed: secret key not available), pass an additional option -k[key_id] to debuild. You can use gpg --list-keys to get the key ID. Look for line like "pub 12345/12ABCDEF", the part after "/" is the key ID.

  Note: If your upload appears to succeed but you receive a confusing email response containing the message:

  • Rejected:
    Signer has no upload rights at all to this distribution.
    Not permitted to upload to the RELEASE pocket in a series in the 'CURRENT' state.

    this means that you forgot to specify your PPA's name on the command-line (that is, the "my-ppa" part). Therefore, your upload was trying to go into the Ubuntu distribution, rather than into a PPA, and you're not authorized to put it there. This is the default behaviour if you omit the PPA name! However, there is a pretty easy (if crude) way to disable this behaviour, by adding these lines to your ~/.dput.cf:

    [DEFAULT]
    default_host_main = notspecified
    
    [notspecified]
    fqdn = SPECIFY.A.PPA.NAME
    incoming = .

    Now if you omit the PPA name you'll immediately get an error including the text "SPECIFY.A.PPA.NAME", which should jog your memory.

Step 4: Launchpad will give you an accepted or rejected upload notification.

Step 5: If the build fails, you will receive a failure notification. If you don't receive a build failure notification, you can check the status of your build by visiting:

https://launchpad.net/people/+me/+archive/+builds?build_state=all&build_text=

Using sources from other distributions

You can use PPA to build sources from other distributions that use .deb packages.

Upload to ~<lp_name>/ubuntu/<suite> and the suite you specify will override the suite named in the upload changelog. You can upload a source from any Debian-compatible distribution straight to your PPA with no changes required.

Note: Although Launchpad will attempt to build the package, it may not be able to meet all of the dependencies of a source created for another a distribution.

Accessing your archive

You can search and browse all PPAs at:

https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+ppas

Your archive is located at:

http://ppa.launchpad.net/your-launchpad-id

To install packages from your archive add the following lines to your /etc/apt/sources.list:

• deb     http://ppa.launchpad.net/your-launchpad-id/ubuntu <ubuntu release> main
  deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/your-launchpad-id/ubuntu <ubuntu release> main

Anchor(copy)

Copying packages

You can copy packages from other PPAs into any PPA that you can upload to. You also have the option of copying packages between distro-series (i.e different distribution releases).

For example: the [https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-mobile/+archive/+copy-packages Ubuntu Mobile team's PPA copy packages] page.

Here you can:

• select one or more sources to copy
• select the destination PPA - you must have upload permission for that archive
• specifiy the destination series
• choose whether or not to also copy the related binary package.

As soon as you request the copy, the source will be listed in your PPA with details of it origin. However, it can take up to twenty minutes for the files to actually appear in your archive.

If you only copy the source, the corresponding build records are created in the destination PPA immediately.

Anchor(delete)

Removing packages from your PPA

To remove packages from your PPA, click Delete packages in the Actions menu and then select the packages you want to remove.

Frequently asked questions

Can anybody have a PPA?BR Yes, this service is available to any developer who wants to publish packages of their free software code. You need a Launchpad account, you will also need a GPG key to sign your source code uploads and you will need to accept the Terms of Service which include the Ubuntu Code of Conduct.

Can I publish any software in a PPA?BR This is a free service for free software developers and licensing is limited to those which are specified in the [wiki:PPATermsofUse PPA Terms of Use]. We may make this service available to commercial software developers too, and would be happy to hear from you if you think that would be useful for you.

What other limitations apply to the PPA service?BR Other than the expectation that packages in your PPA are free software, we do ask that you not abuse the build system with unnecessary builds or automated uploads of large numbers of packages. We will monitor the total amount of build time per user and ask folks to be reasonable in their use of the shared resources in the PPA pool. Developers and teams each start with 1 gigabyte of storage space freely available in their PPA's for source and binary packages. We will not accept uploads of packages that are unmodified from their original source in Ubuntu or Debian, only packages that include your own changes. We ask that people include useful changelogs for each package so that users and other developers can understand what new features they are exploring in their work. Read the [wiki:PPATermsofUse PPA Terms of Use] for more information.

How long are packages published?BR Packages will remain published until either you remove them yourself, or you supersede them with newer versions, or the underlying release of Ubuntu against which they were built becomes obsolete and unmaintained.

What formats of packages are supported?BR At this stage only .deb packages are supported. If you are interested in building RPM or other package formats, please contact us on the [https://lists.canonical.com/mailman/listinfo/launchpad-users Launchpad users mailing list] to discuss that in more detail!

How many users can download packages from my PPA?BR There are no limits on the number of users you can point at your PPA. We would encourage you to build communities of users and testers around your PPA, and there are no bandwidth restrictions on downloads from any PPA.

How many PPAs can I have?BR Each user and team in Launchpad can have a single public PPA. If you want to have different versions of the same package, testing different features or focused on different use cases, then we would encourage you to create a new team and use the PPA for that team. That way, for example, you can have a team of people interested in "server" issues that has one version of the Apache package, and another interested in "workstation" issues that has a different version of the same package, each in a different PPA. Please don't abuse this capability!

Why are only x86 and amd64 architectures supported?BR We use the Xen virtualisation system for security during the build process, ensuring that each build has a clean build environment and different developers cannot impact on one another's builds accidentally. This technology is only available on x86 and amd64.

Why do I get a warning about unauthenticated packages?BR At present the PPA system does not sign the archive, and Ubuntu's apt will issue a warning when fetching from such archives. This is [https://bugs.edge.launchpad.net/soyuz/+bug/125103 bug 125103].