apt-get upgrade fails on custom repository

[Stefano Pugnetti <stefano.pugnetti@gmail.com>]

Hi all!

I subscribed to the list 'cause I could not solve my problem with google
(and all the relevant Debian documentation I could find...).

I have created a local repository for distributing software inside my
local network. I wanted to secure the process, so I opted for a
hierarchical structure (dists/my-dist/my-component/binary-my-arch), a
dists/Release file and its gpg dists/Release.gpg signature.

On the client side I added a .list file to /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ with
just one line:
deb uri-of-my-repo my-dist my-component

When I launch `sudo apt-get upgrade`, the Release and Release.gpg files
are correctly downloaded into /var/lib/apt/lists/, but I get an error
"Unable to find expected entry my-component/binary-my-arch/Packages in
Release file" (my-dist, my-component and my-arch are not the actual
names; actual names are lowercase, only letters).

However the Release file does contain a line with the md5sum of the
Packages file, its length in bytes and its name (including path:
my-component/binary-my-arch/Packages). Moreover the Package file can be
downloaded from the repository (I tried with wget on the client). If I
manually copy the Packages file in /var/lib/apt/lists/ (with a name that
includes its path, like other files in that dir), everything works fine.

I don't understand what is the point. Any idea?

Thanks,

Stefano