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What is the easiest way to update/upgrade an offline Ubuntu machine with the help of a Windows machine that has internet access?

This question also applies to installing new packages offline and not only updates/upgrades.

The Linux system shall remain completely cut off from the Windows machine, meaning there should be no ethernet connection or the likes between the two computers.

Update:

Please have patience, since I haven't updated this since two weeks.
There are some complications getting apt-offline to work properly on Lubuntu and all other methods seem to be too old and deprecated:

AptOff - last update 2006
AptMedium - last update 2007
Keryx - last update 2011, looks like this project was discontinued

I hope I will be able to somehow update the offline machine, finally.

While I was still not able to update/upgrade the offline system due to authentication errors, I accepted an answer, because it's taking too long.

Christian Heinrichs
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    Please explain why linux machine must have no internet, while it is connected to machine which has? Does the solution where windows machine shares internet connection with Linux machine is acceptable for you? Also what distribution you are using, answers changes from one to another. – IBr Sep 02 '13 at 15:00
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    Which Linux? The answer depends largely on the package system used by the distribution. – terdon Sep 02 '13 at 16:52
  • It will probably be Lubuntu. Is this question still appropriate for Unix & Linux or should it be merged? – Christian Heinrichs Sep 02 '13 at 21:25

3 Answers3

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It depends on your distribution. For debian-based distributions (such as Ubuntu) you can use the command apt-offline

http://www.researchut.com/tools/apt-offline

This guide provides another methods for updating ubuntu offline:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Synaptic/Offline

Tobu
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fclad
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  • These methods sound promising. I hope they are easy to accomplish. – Christian Heinrichs Sep 02 '13 at 15:14
  • But I don't have apt-offline in my non-online Ubuntu computer! I ran the command sudo apt-offline set apt-offline.sig and it gave me the error - sudo apt-offline: command not found! – user1995 Sep 04 '17 at 21:52
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A simple but tiresome solution would be to download the packages you need to the windows machine and then transfer them with some storage-media (usb thumbdrive, cd or something) to the linux machine.

Thomas Sigurdsen
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  • Could you give an example, please? How should the directory structure look like and where should I transfer the packages? – Christian Heinrichs Sep 02 '13 at 15:13
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    Depends on your distro I guess. Most package managers have a way of installing local packages. I think Debian and derivatives can use the dpkg -i FILENAME.deb command. You could also install directly from sourcecode, but this is often considered harder. – Thomas Sigurdsen Sep 02 '13 at 15:23
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On the Windows machine,

  1. download a preconfigured routing LiveCD
  2. create a cd from the ISO iamge
  3. reboot the windows machine using that CD
  4. tell your offline Linux it is now online via the rebooted Windows machine.
Bananguin
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