[PlanetCCRMA] creating apt databases from arbitrary rpms

[Fernando Pablo Lopez-Lezcano]

> I have a mirror of the redhat 9 rpms from ftp.redhat.com but no cds.
> I've read http://ccrma-www.stanford.edu/planetccrma/software/createredhatcdroms.html
> which describes how to apt-ify a non-apt redhat install cd. It requires downloading 
> the apt databases from planet ccrma that match the cd.
> 
> My question is: how were those databases created? I've looked in
> the apt docs and cannot seem to find an answer. 

In the same way that apt repositories are created, it is not different
at all. What I did is to basically copy the cd to /mnt/cdrom, add the
dir structure of a repository and then run genbasedir on it. Burn the cd
from that and you're done (and/or create tarfiles of the apt subtree for
others to use). 

> I'd like to just
> create a package database for my existing mirror rather than download
> a few GB of cds that contain rpms that I already have ;-)

Hmmm, the databases are only about 1/2M each. You don't need to download
everything that you already have. If you want to create apt-enabled
cdroms and the cdroms you have are stock then that should be enough. 

But it looks like you want to create your own repository.  

There are several places where you can find info on how to create
repositories, a good one can be found here, it's pretty complete, I
think (Matthias Saou wrote it):
  http://freshrpms.net/apt/server/

Let me know if you need more help...
-- Fernando