Define package repositories

Most Debian based Linux system come with some kind of repositories defined. Running apt-get update will get available package lists from these repositories. If you want to use qbee for package and patch management it is important to understand which repositories are active on the embedded edge device.

With qbee you can use different package management and patch management strategies.

This short article explains how to find the existing repositories and potentially adding a user defined one. Then standard packages can be updated from the standard repository while the specific apps can come from the custom repository. However, most of our customers just use the file manager as an individual overlay to the defined repository. This allows a very simple control and you don't need to do anything on the device. In addition, you can actually control the file manager with our API, allowing even CI/CD setups together with third party tools. But here a way how to explore the existing repositories.

Show existing repositories:

grep ^ /etc/apt/sources.list /etc/apt/sources.list.d/*

In order to add your repo create a new file:

nano /etc/apt/sources.list.d/qbee.list

and insert your repository definition:

deb https://my-ip-address buster main

The next thing is to enable your keys. Please consult the internet how to do this.

Tip

Packagecloud.io actually provides you with a script that creates the custom repository and takes care of the keys. This leads to a very simple setup. But then again, most likely the qbee file manager will be a better alternative if you just want to manage a few application packages or a few operating system library patches.