Setting up an f-droid server

System requirement

1. Android SDK(assuming you have a 32bit system, download it from here )
2. Android NDK(assuming you have a 32bit system, download it from here)
3. Extract it to suitable location on your system. You will use these PATH'S in server configuration.
4. ant, ant-contrib, maven, javacc, openjdk-6-jdk, any one version control like git.
5. An apache webserver.

Cloning this repository

1. Clone this repo using:

   git clone https://github.com/androportal/f-droid-fdroidserver.git
   

   Or you can clone the most updated repo from official fdroid repository

   git clone git://gitorious.org/f-droid/fdroidserver.git
   

Setting system's PATH

1. Adding fdroid binary in system's $PATH

   • for example

     export PATH=/path/to/this/repo/:$PATH
     

   • Or you can add the same line in your .bashrc file.

Setting up a repository for apk's

1. Assuming your webserver document root is /var/www/ (this is default in case of Ubuntu), make a directory like /var/www/fdroid .

   Type

   sudo mkdir -p /var/www/fdroid
   

   You need to provide your sudo password

2. Copy config.py from this repository to /var/www/fdroid location

   sudo cp -v config.py /var/www/fdroid
   

   This is the modified file, the original version of this file is with the name config.sample.py

3. Also copy fdroid-icon.png to same location /var/www/fdroid:

   sudo cp -v fdroid-icon.png /var/www/fdroid
   

4. Now create three(3) more directories inside /var/www/fdroid:

   sudo mkdir /var/www/fdroid/repo
   
   sudo mkdir /var/www/fdroid/metadata
   
   sudo mkdir /var/www/fdroid/tmp
   

   • repo will hold all the apk's
   • metadata will hold all the extra information about apk's
   • tmp will have apk cache

5. Copy all your apk file to /var/www/fdroid/repo

   sudo cp -v *.apk /var/www/fdroid/repo
   

6. Your file hierarchy under /var/www/fdroid should look something like this

   metadata/
   repo/
   tmp/
   config.py
   fdroid.icon.png
   

Modifying config.py file

1. Open config.py from /var/www/fdroid/ and edit it. You can also refer to our sample config file my-config.py

Setting up a keystore

1. When setting up the repository, one of the first steps should be to generate a signing key for the repository index. This will also create a keystore, which is a file that can be used to hold this and all other keys used. Consider the location, security and backup status of this file carefully, then create it as follows

   • You need to create a keystore file with the same name and location assigned to a variable keystore in config.py file. For example if our keystore variable is

     keystore = "/home/sachin/fdroid-keystore/my.keystore"
     

     then, visit that location

     cd /home/sachin/fdroid-keystore/my.keystore
     

     and execute the command

     keytool -genkey -v -keystore my.keystore -alias repokey -keyalg RSA -keysize 2048 -validity 10000
     

   • Provide same values which you have assigned to variable keydname in config.py

   • Please say yes when asked for confirmation and press ENTER

   • This should generate a file my.keystore in present directory

   • Now everything is in place, visit the location /var/www/fdroid and execute the command

     fdroid update -c -v
     

     This should show output similar to screenshot below

   

   • Now run

     fdroid update -v
     

   • and finally

     fdroid publish
     

Configure webserver to server your repo

1. Assuming you have installed a webserver, start it using

   sudo service apache2 start
   

   assuming you are using an Ubuntu distro

2. Don't forget to give access to web user

   sudo chown -R www-data.www-data /var/www/fdroid
   

   and

   sudo chmod -R 755 /var/www/fdroid
   

3. Give root access to config.py file

   sudo chown root.root /var/www/fdroid/config.py
   
   sudo chmod 700 /var/www/fdroid/config.py
   

Testing your repo

1. You can test your f-droid server by visiting http://localhost/fdroid/repo on a web-browser
2. If you have any problem, please make sure you have followed all above steps correctly OR raise an issue.

Reference

1. A more detailed manual is maintained on official fdroid site https://f-droid.org/manual/fdroid.html