Hi all,

I have read that APT how-to but the part that described installing from local packages didn't work for me so here is my problem....

First off:
I'm running Debian Sarge 2.4.26-1-386

Problem:
When it came to apt-setup I selected CD-ROM but it came back telling me that it was not not a Debian CD. Then I copied all the package files into a directory on the machibe (/archives), my question is how do I set APT to read package lists from this directory I have created?

Other Info: I use the aptitude fron-end to manage packages and, due to security reasons, I have no Internet acces of any kind on my debian box.

I hope I've described the problem well enough and that you can offer some assistance.

Cheers.

As you have already copied all the files to /archive you need a file called Packages.gz that describes the contents of the directory for apt to work off and you create it this way;
cd to /
do dpkg-scanpackages archive /dev/null | gzip > archive/Packages.gz
cd /archive and check that Packages.gz has been created
You can then write the /archive directory to a cdrom

You don't need to disconnect from the Internet for security reasons.
Install a web server that does not have cgi-bin, which allows
external programs to execute on your machine. A good example is
dhttpd.

thanks for the replies. The problem is sorted now

p.s. I have to disconnect from the Internet as I work in the AV industry and can not afford any possibilty of infection/virus escapes