ArchiveBox Debian Package

This repo builds the archivebox .deb package used by apt install on Ubuntu/Debian-based systems.

The package is just a thin apt wrapper around the normal Python install flow, it's not a "proper debian package" because it depends on postinstall scripts to setup python, uv, and archivebox.

1. apt installs /usr/bin/archivebox, /opt/archivebox/install.sh, a systemd unit, and a small package metadata file.
2. postinstall reuses a suitable host uv when one is already installed, or installs uv into /opt/archivebox/uv as a fallback.
3. uv resolves Python 3.13 from the host or its normal managed-Python location for the archivebox system user.
4. uv pip install installs ArchiveBox into /opt/archivebox/venv.
5. Runtime extractor/plugin dependencies remain managed by archivebox install, and only your selected plugin dependencies are lazy-installed on first use.

Install

echo 'deb [trusted=yes] https://archivebox.github.io/debian-archivebox dev main' | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/archivebox.list
sudo apt update
sudo apt install archivebox

Then initialize an archive:

mkdir -p ~/archivebox/data && cd ~/archivebox/data
archivebox init           # initialize a new collection in the current dir
archivebox version        # see version of all detected installed dependencies
archivebox install        # use sudo to get apt dependencies auto-installed too
archivebox add 'https://example.com'

The package creates the archivebox system user and the state/config/runtime directories needed for systemd usage. Regular users can keep archives anywhere they own; usually only archivebox install is needed to get all plugin dependencies, but if you are missing some runtime apt dependencies, then you can run sudo archivebox install to get them (don't worry, it wont leave the collection owned by root).

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Building the .deb From Source

go install github.com/goreleaser/nfpm/v2/cmd/nfpm@latest
./bin/build_deb.sh
sudo apt install ./dist/archivebox_*.deb

By default, bin/build_deb.sh packages the latest ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox:dev commit and stores that exact source archive URL in /opt/archivebox/package.env. Override the source when needed:

ARCHIVEBOX_REF=v0.9.34 ./bin/build_deb.sh
ARCHIVEBOX_PIP_SPEC='archivebox==0.9.34' DEB_VERSION='0.9.34' ./bin/build_deb.sh

Before publishing, CI verifies the built package on an Ubuntu GitHub Actions runner by installing the .deb with apt, running the installed /usr/bin/archivebox as both root and a normal passwordless-sudo user, running full archivebox install flows for both, archiving a local fixture page as the normal user, and asserting that index.sqlite3 plus real files under archive/ are written to disk.