apt-golang-s3
An s3 transport method for the apt
package management system

The apt-golang-s3 project provides support for hosting private
apt repositories in
Amazon S3. This is useful if you have private
packages, vendored public packages, or forks of public packages that your
software or business depend on. There are several opensource projects that
solve this problem, but they come with some limitations.
- They are unmaintained.
- They don't support the S3v4 request signature method.
- They are written in a language that requires a runtime or other dependencies.
This project is an attempt to address those limitations.
TL;DR
- Build the binary
$ go build -o apt-golang-s3 main.go
- Install the binary
$ sudo cp apt-golang-s3 /usr/lib/apt/methods/s3
- Add your s3 based source to a package list
$ echo "deb s3://access-key:access-secret@s3.amazonaws.com/private-repo-bucket stable main" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/private-repo.list
- Update and install packages
$ sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install your-private-package
Building the go program
There is an included Dockerfile to setup an environment for building the binary
in a sandboxed environment:
$ ls
Dockerfile main.go method README.md
$ docker build -t apt-golang-s3 .
...
$ docker run -it --rm -v $(pwd):/app apt-golang-s3 bash
root@83823fffd369:/app# ls
Dockerfile README.md build-deb.sh go.mod go.sum main.go method
root@83823fffd369:/app# go build -o apt-golang-s3 main.go
...
root@83823fffd369:/app# ls
Dockerfile README.md apt-golang-s3 build-deb.sh go.mod go.sum main.go method
root@83823fffd369:/app# exit
exit
$ ls
apt-golang-s3 build-deb.sh Dockerfile go.mod go.sum main.go method README.md
Building a debian package
For convenience, there is a small bash script in the repository that can build
the binary and package it as a .deb.
$ ls
build-deb.sh Dockerfile go.mod go.sum main.go method README.md
$ docker build -t apt-golang-s3 .
$ docker run -it --rm -v $(pwd):/app apt-golang-s3 /app/build-deb.sh
...
Created package {:path=>"apt-golang-s3_1_amd64.deb"}
$ ls
apt-golang-s3 apt-golang-s3_1_amd64.deb build-deb.sh Dockerfile go.mod go.sum main.go method README.md
Installing in production
The apt-golang-s3
binary is an executable. To install it copy it to
/usr/lib/apt/methods/s3
on your computer. The .deb file produced by
build-deb.sh
will install the method in the correct place.
Configuration
APT Repository Source Configuration
We recommend issuing a separate set of API keys, with read-only access, to the
S3 bucket that hosts your repository. The keys are specified in the apt sources
list configuration as follows:
$ cat /etc/apt/sources.list.d/my-private-repo.list
deb s3://aws-access-key-id:aws-secret-access-key@s3.amazonaws.com/my-private-repo-bucket stable main
APT Method Configuration
The current default AWS region is set to us-east-1
, but can be overridden by
adding an option in your apt configuration, e.g.
echo "Acquire::s3::region us-east-1;" > /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/s3
Alternatively, you may specify an IAM role to assume before connecting to S3.
The role will be assumed using the default credential chain; this option is
mutually exclusive with static credentials in the S3 URL.
echo "Acquire::s3::role arn:aws:iam::123456789012:role/s3-apt-reader;" > /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/s3
Additional configuration options may be added in the future.
How it works
Apt creates a child process using the /usr/lib/apt/methods/s3
binary and
writes to that processes standard input using a specific protocol. The method
interprets the input, downloads the requested files, and communicates back to
apt by writing to its standard output. The protocol spec is available here
http://www.fifi.org/doc/libapt-pkg-doc/method.html/ch2.html.
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Disclaimer
This is not an officially supported Google product.