Personal Package Archive

A Personal Package Archive (PPA) is a per-user or per-team apt repository hosted by Launchpad.

Supported series

Each distribution on Launchpad publishes its supported series at https://launchpad.net/<distribution>/+ppas. For Ubuntu, the most common case, this is https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+ppas. The target series is read from the Distribution field in the source package’s debian/changelog file. An unknown or unsupported value causes the upload to be rejected.

Supported architectures

Architecture

Built by default

amd64

yes

amd64v3

no

arm64

no

armel

no

armhf

no

i386

no

ppc64el

no

riscv64

no

s390x

no

See https://launchpad.net/builders/ for the live list.

Quotas and limits

Resource

Limit

Disk space

8 GiB; larger quotas considered on request at https://answers.launchpad.net/launchpad

Data transfer

No fixed cap; unusual volumes may trigger contact from Launchpad

PPAs per owner

One or more per user or team; each has its own URL

Visibility

Public by default; private PPAs available with Canonical approval

Uploadable artefacts

Source packages only; pre-built binary uploads are rejected

Package formats

.deb only

Eligibility and acceptable-use terms are described in Project eligibility.

Package retention

A published package remains available until one of the following occurs:

  • the owner removes it, or

  • a later upload supersedes it.

Removal is not immediate on disk; see Delete packages from PPAs for the cleanup schedule.

Signing key

Launchpad generates a unique GPG key for each owner’s default PPA and reuses it for every PPA owned by the same user or team. The key and the command required to trust it are shown on the PPA’s overview page.