How to only install updates from a specific repository?

Question

How do I limit the updates that are installed to those from a specific set of repositories? Is this at all possible?

Answer 1

You can specify a repository with -t option. As an example, I have added the following repository to /etc/apt/sources.list to install Iceweasel latest release:

deb http://mozilla.debian.net/ squeeze-backports iceweasel-release

As you know there is a same package iceweasel in the official Debian repository. If I want install Iceweasel from this specific repo I run:

apt-get install -t squeeze-backports iceweasel

from apt-get manual page:

-t, --target-release, --default-release
           This option controls the default input to the policy engine, it creates a default pin at priority 990 using the specified
           release string. This overrides the general settings in /etc/apt/preferences. Specifically pinned packages are not affected by
           the value of this option. In short, this option lets you have simple control over which distribution packages will be retrieved
           from. Some common examples might be -t '2.1*', -t unstable or -t sid. Configuration Item: APT::Default-Release; see also the
           apt_preferences(5) manual page.

I think this is a better solution,

Answer 2

A gui based alternative would be to open software centre and select edit > software sources...

all you need to do is un-tick the repositories you don't want updates from.

Hope this helps

Answer 3

Obvious choice is to modify /etc/apt/sources.list and comment out all other repositories, and then run

apt-get update && apt-get upgrade && apt-get autoclean

And then remove comments from sources.list. Maybe not the best way, but at least apt-get man pages do not specify any way to do that.

On related note, for example Ubuntu distribution upgrade process disables all 3rd party repositories during upgrade (and do not just run some option to exclude those temporarily).

Answer 4

You can disable automatic updates from certain repositories without entirely removing them via apt policies:

To disable automatic updates from repository repo, add add a file /etc/apt/preferences.d/repo with the following content:

Package: *
Pin: release n=repo
Pin-Priority: 50

Which will give all packages from this repository a lower priority than already installed packages (which have 100).

For more information man apt_preferences or check the Ubuntu Community Wiki.