Store Apt packages in Artifact Registry

Store Apt packages in Artifact Registry

This quickstart shows you how to set up a private Artifact Registry Apt repository, add a Debian package to the repository, and install the package on a Compute Engine VM running a Debian-based operating system.

You perform steps in this quickstart using Cloud Shell and in the shell on the VM that you create in this quickstart.

To learn more about managing Debian packages, see Working with Debian packages.

Before you begin

1. Sign in to your Google Cloud account. If you're new to Google Cloud, create an account to evaluate how our products perform in real-world scenarios. New customers also get $300 in free credits to run, test, and deploy workloads.

2. In the Google Cloud console, on the project selector page, select or create a Google Cloud project.

   Note: If you don't plan to keep the resources that you create in this procedure, create a project instead of selecting an existing project. After you finish these steps, you can delete the project, removing all resources associated with the project.

   Go to project selector

3. Make sure that billing is enabled for your Google Cloud project.

4. Enable the Artifact Registry API.

   Enable the API

5. In the Google Cloud console, on the project selector page, select or create a Google Cloud project.

   Note: If you don't plan to keep the resources that you create in this procedure, create a project instead of selecting an existing project. After you finish these steps, you can delete the project, removing all resources associated with the project.

   Go to project selector

6. Make sure that billing is enabled for your Google Cloud project.

7. Enable the Artifact Registry API.

   Enable the API

Launch Cloud Shell

Cloud Shell comes preinstalled with the Google Cloud CLI. The gcloud CLI provides the primary command-line interface for Google Cloud.

Launch Cloud Shell:

1. Go to Google Cloud console.

   Google Cloud console

2. On the Google Cloud console toolbar, click Activate Cloud Shell:

A Cloud Shell session opens inside a frame lower on the console. You'll use this shell to run the gcloud commands to create a VM and a repository.

Create a repository

Create the repository for your artifacts.

1. Create the repository:

   Console

   1. Open the Repositories page in the Google Cloud console.

      Open the Repositories page

   2. Click Create Repository.

   3. Specify quickstart-apt-repo as the repository name.

   4. Select Apt as the format.

   5. Under Location Type, select Region and then choose the location us-central1.

   6. Click Create.

   The repository is added to the repository list.

   gcloud

   1. In Cloud Shell, run the following command to create a new Apt repository in the current project named quickstart-apt-repo in the location us-central1.

      gcloud artifacts repositories create quickstart-apt-repo \
          --repository-format=apt \
          --location=us-central1 \
          --description="Apt repository"
      

   2. Run the following command to verify that your repository was created:

      gcloud artifacts repositories list
      

You can now add a package to the repository.

Add a package to the repository

You can upload a package to a repository using the Google Cloud CLI, or you can import a package that is stored in Cloud Storage. If you build packages using Cloud Build, the build can store the packages in Cloud Storage for you to import.

For this quickstart, you upload a sample file using the gcloud artifacts apt upload command.

1. In Cloud Shell, download the Apt quick reference sheet with the command:

   apt download apt-dpkg-ref
   

   Apt downloads the latest version of the package that is available from your configured Apt repositories.

   Get:1 http://deb.debian.org/debian buster/main amd64 apt-dpkg-ref all 5.3.1+nmu2 [113 kB]
   Fetched 113 kB in 0s (428 kB/s)
   

   Run ls to get the filename of the Apt quick reference sheet. The filename is similar to apt-dpkg-ref_5.3.1+nmu2_all.deb.

2. To simplify gcloud commands, set the default repository to quickstart-apt-repo and the default location to us-central1. After the values are set, you do not need to specify them in gcloud commands that require a repository or a location.

   To set the repository, run the command:

   gcloud config set artifacts/repository quickstart-apt-repo
   

   To set the location, run the command:

   gcloud config set artifacts/location us-central1
   

   For more information about these commands, see the gcloud config set documentation.

3. Run the gcloud artifacts apt upload to upload the package to the repository:

   gcloud artifacts apt upload quickstart-apt-repo \
       --source=FILE_NAME
   

   Replace FILE_NAME with the path to the Apt quick reference sheet.

View the package in the repository

Verify that your package was added to the repository.

Console

1. Open the Repositories page in the Google Cloud console.

   Open the Repositories page

2. In the repository list, click the quickstart-apt-repo repository.

   The Packages page lists the packages in the repository.

gcloud

To list the packages in the quickstart-apt-repo repository, run the command:

 gcloud artifacts packages list

To view versions for a package in quickstart-apt-repo, run the command:

gcloud artifacts versions list --package=apt-dpkg-ref

Create a VM

Create a new Compute Engine VM where you'll install the sample package.

In Cloud Shell, run the following command to create a VM instance named quickstart-apt-vm:

gcloud compute instances create quickstart-apt-vm \
    --image-family=debian-10 \
    --image-project=debian-cloud \
    --scopes=cloud-platform

By default, the VM does not have the required access scopes for working with the repository. The --scopes flag sets the access scope for the VM to cloud-platform.

Configure the package manager

To install a package on the VM, add the repository you created to the Apt configuration file that defines package repositories.

Note: The VM you created in this quickstart uses a Debian OS image built by Google, which is pre-configured with some settings for accessing Artifact Registry repositories. If you want to configure a Compute Engine VM that uses a Google-built Ubuntu image, a VM that uses an OS image that isn't built by Google, or a VM outside of Google Cloud, there are additional configuration steps. For details, see the full VM configuration instructions.

1. Go to the VM instances page.

   Open the VM instances page

2. In the row with your VM, click SSH. A new window opens with a terminal session on the VM.

3. Run gcloud init to initialize the Google Cloud CLI on your VM.

4. Update Apt:

   sudo apt update
   

5. Install the Apt credential helper on the VM to enable Apt to perform authentication:

   sudo apt install apt-transport-artifact-registry
   

6. Configure your VM to access Artifact Registry packages using the following command:

   echo 'deb ar+https://us-central1-apt.pkg.dev/projects/PROJECT quickstart-apt-repo main' | sudo tee -a  /etc/apt/sources.list.d/artifact-registry.list
   

   Replace PROJECT with your Google Cloud project ID.

Install the package

Install the package that you added to the repository.

1. Update the list of available packages:

   sudo apt update
   

2. Install the package in your repository.

   sudo apt install apt-dpkg-ref/quickstart-apt-repo
   

   The returned installation information looks like the following example:

   Reading package lists... Done
   Building dependency tree
   Reading state information... Done
   Selected version '5.3.1+nmu2' (Debian:10.7/stable, namespaces/my-repo/repositories/quickstart-apt-repo:quickstart
   -apt-repo [all]) for 'apt-dpkg-ref'
   The following NEW packages will be installed:
     apt-dpkg-ref
   0 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 3 not upgraded.
   Need to get 113 kB of archives.
   After this operation, 128 kB of additional disk space will be used.
   Get:1 http://deb.debian.org/debian buster/main amd64 apt-dpkg-ref all 5.3.1+nmu2 [113 kB]
   Fetched 113 kB in 0s (693 kB/s)
   Selecting previously unselected package apt-dpkg-ref.
   (Reading database ... 39506 files and directories currently installed.)
   Preparing to unpack .../apt-dpkg-ref_5.3.1+nmu2_all.deb ...
   Unpacking apt-dpkg-ref (5.3.1+nmu2) ...
   Setting up apt-dpkg-ref (5.3.1+nmu2) ...
   

Clean up

To avoid incurring charges to your Google Cloud account for the resources used on this page, follow these steps.

Before you remove the repository, ensure that any packages you want to keep are available in another location.

To delete the repository:

Console

1. Open the Repositories page in the Google Cloud console.

   Open the Repositories page

2. In the repository list, select the quickstart-apt-repo repository.

3. Click Delete.

gcloud

1. To delete the quickstart-apt-repo repository, run the following command:

   gcloud artifacts repositories delete quickstart-apt-repo
   

2. If you want to remove the default repository and location settings that you configured for the active gcloud configuration, run the following commands:

   gcloud config unset artifacts/repository
   gcloud config unset artifacts/location
   

To delete the VM you created, run the following command:

gcloud compute instances delete quickstart-apt-vm

What's next

• Learn about working with Deb packages.
• Read our resources about DevOps and explore our research program.