Tutorials

End-to-end walkthroughs that take a pile of packages all the way to a signed repository your clients can install from.

Each tutorial here is a complete journey: you start with nothing, run every command in order, and finish with something a real dnf or apt client can use. Commands are copy-pasteable and every output block is a real transcript.

If you have not installed SOW yet, start with Installation and Quick Start — those get you to a working flat repository in five minutes. The tutorials below pick up from there and build the production shape.

Build a YUM RepositoryA managed RPM repository with per-architecture views, noarch projection, debuginfo filtering, version limits, and a working dnf client configuration.

Build an APT RepositoryA managed DEB repository with a Debian-style pool, by-hash indexes, and both deb822 and legacy sources.list client configurations.

Sign Your RepositoryGenerate a dedicated GPG key, sign repository metadata and RPM packages, and configure clients to reject anything unsigned.

Serve RepositoriesPublish the tree over HTTP with Nginx, preview it locally, and copy it to an air-gapped host without losing hardlink deduplication.

Migrate from createrepo_c / repreproTake over an existing repository in place, move a reprepro archive into a workspace, and see exactly what changes and what does not.

Which one first

Your situation	Start here
You ship RPMs for EL8 / EL9 / EL10	Build a YUM Repository
You ship DEBs for Debian or Ubuntu	Build an APT Repository
You have a repository and clients complain it is unsigned	Sign Your Repository
The tree is built but nothing can reach it	Serve Repositories
You have a `createrepo_c` cron job or a reprepro database	Migration

The YUM and APT tutorials share one workspace and are written to be followed in sequence — the APT tutorial adds a second Dist to the repository the YUM tutorial creates. You can also follow either one standalone; each states its own prerequisites.

Conventions used here

Shell blocks contain commands without a $ prefix so you can copy a whole block at once. Output appears in a separate block below the command, or as a comment when it is one line. Where a command needs a value you must substitute, it appears in UPPERCASE.

Every tutorial ends with a verification step. If verification fails, do not continue — the next step assumes the tree is in the state the previous one produced. sow check is the gate that tells you the truth: exit code 0 means the tree is complete and ready to copy, exit code 5 means it is not.