How to create an eclipse update archive from an online update site?

Question

I get tired of having to install hundreds of plugins (I use a lot of em) from the Internet every time I change my eclipse installation.

What eclipse does during the installation of the plugin, downloads the corresponding banks from the update site and installs them.

Is there a way to link these boot banks to the archive so that next time you can update locally without downloading all the plugins again?

Answer 1

You can mirror the necessary functions and create a local repo. You need the identifiers of the functions that you regularly install (they are in the eclipse/features directory), and then you can create a small ant script to create a local repo. From there, you can simply install locally. The repo identifiers match the identifier of the function + ".feature.group"

 <target name="CreateLocalRepo"> <p2.mirror destination="file:///opt/local/eclipseMirror" ignoreerrors="true"> <source location="http://download.eclipse.org/releases/helios"/> <iu id="org.eclipse.emf.sdk.feature.group"/> <iu id="org.eclipse.releng.tools.feature.group"/> </p2.mirror> <target> 

For this, there might be something like:

 eclipse/eclipse -noSplash \ -application org.eclipse.ant.core.antRunner \ -buildfile createLocalRepo.xml 

Another option, if you still have an outdated eclipse installation, is to use Help> Install New Software and provide your old eclipse as the repo location. OLD_ECLIPSE_INSTALL / P2 / org.eclipse.equinox.p2.engine / profileRegistry / SDKProfile.profile

Answer 2

I would like to add to Paul an answer to the following Ant script, in which you do not need to list all the identifiers of the functions contained in the site:

 <?xml version="1.0" ?> <project name="MyProject" default="CreateLocalRepo" basedir="."> <target name="CreateLocalRepo"> <p2.mirror destination="file://..." ignoreerrors="true"> <source> <repository location="http://.../" /> </source> </p2.mirror> </target> </project>