launchpad helpLaunchpad Help > Packaging > PPAs > Uploading a package to a PPA
Uploading a package to a PPA
Once you've built your source package, you need to upload it to Launchpad using the dput tool.
Note: 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 PPA Terms of Use for more information.
Dput uploads the following files:
.dsc
.changes
.diff.gz
and optionally the .orig.tar.gz (if you used debuild -S -sa to build your package)
First, you need to tell dput where to send your package and by what method. To do that, edit ~/.dput.cf to look like this:
[my-ppa] fqdn = ppa.launchpad.net method = ftp incoming = ~<your_launchpad_id>/<ppa_name>/ubuntu/ login = anonymous allow_unsigned_uploads = 0
You'll need to:
Change the first line to whatever name you want to use to refer to your PPA, while retaining the square brackets. Do not use just "ppa" as the name here: that conflicts with an entry in /etc/dput.cf and will cause confusing failures (Could not find person or team named ''.).
If you're uploading to a team PPA, change the ~<your-launchpad-id> to your team's Launchpad name (maintaining the tilde). As you might expect, you must be a member of the team before you can upload to its PPA.
Set the correct <ppa-name>, the default PPA name is ppa, use the specific name for other PPA in the same context. Don't confuse the PPA name with the display name you have configured for your PPA in Launchpad, for most users creating their first PPA the PPA name will be literally just the string ppa.
Next, open a terminal and enter the following:
$ dput my-ppa P_V_source.changes
Replace P with the package name and V with the version number.
Find out about possible upload errors.
Using packages from other distributions
You can use your PPA to build sources from other distributions that use .deb packages.
Create a new dput configuration section using incoming = ~<lp_name>/ppa/ubuntu/<a ubuntu suite> and the suite you specify will override the suite named in the upload changelog when you upload it using the new configuration:
$ dput my-ppa-force-hardy P_V_source.changes
You can upload a source from any Debian-compatible distribution straight to your PPA with no changes required and it will be built and published in the targeted Ubuntu suite.
Important: 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.
Next steps
If there's a problem with your source package, or its upload, Launchpad will give you an error. Find out more about what the upload errors mean.
