zigford.org/gentoo-local-overlay.md

Gentoo local overlay

I find myself having to create a local overlay to test/develop a new ebuild without affecting my main system from time to time. I usually fire up a clean kvm Gentoo guest to start working on, but I've usually forgotten the proceedure

This is a quick instruction on a straight-forward local overlay

1. Create the local path tree where the overlay will reside:

    mkdir -p /usr/local/portage/overlay/{metadata,profiles}
   

2. Create the layout.conf file and repo_name file

    cd /usr/local/portage/overlay
    echo "masters = gentoo" > metadata/layout.conf
    echo  "$(hostname)" > profiles/repo_name
   

3. Create a repos.conf file:

    cat <<EOF>/etc/portage/repos.conf/$(hostname).conf
    [$(hostname)]
    location = /usr/local/portage/overlay
    auto-sync = no
    priority = 10
    EOF
   

done.

Now you can begin to populate the local repo with custom ebuilds. I usually do this and then upload my new ebuild to my github repository.

See also:

repos.conf, Custom Repository

Tags: gentoo, portage-overlay