Software repository

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A software repository (sometimes abbreviated as a repo) is a storage location from which software packages may be retrieved and installed on a computer. Many software publishers and other organisations maintain servers on the Internet for this purpose, either free of charge or for a subscription fee. Repositories may be solely for particular programs, such as CPAN for the Perl programming language, or for an entire operating system. Operators of such repositories typically provide a package management system, tools intended to search for, install and otherwise manipulate software packages from the repositories. For example, many Linux distributions use Advanced Packaging Tool or yum.

As software repositories are designed to include useful packages, major repositories are designed to be malware free. If a computer is configured to use a digitally signed repository from a reputable vendor, and is coupled with an appropriate permissions system, this significantly reduces the threat of malware to these systems. As a side effect, many systems that have these capabilities do not require anti-malware software such as anti-virus software.^[1]