Is it possible to set up a local QGIS Plugin repository?

I've developed a couple of custom QGIS Plugins for use by our office. I can't post them to the official QGIS Plugins repository as they reference/utilize sensitive data on our own servers.

For distribution, I'm currently just having users copy the plugin folder over to their local plugins folder. However, this is inconvenient and won't give them an easy way to update.

Can I set up a custom repository on a network drive or server (behind our firewall) that users can connect to?

Answer

It is possible, yes. I have not done it myself, but I have read about it in this book. (I hope this does not count as an ad; if someone thinks so, please edit the post and remove the link).

You would first have to create an XML file that looks like the following:

    
        This plugin shows sensitive data
        www.gisisfun.com
        2.2
        somePlugin.zip
        YourName
        http://my-site.com/somePlugin.zip
    

That file and your plugin(s) would then be uploaded to a web server (of course you’d configure your server so only people from your company can access its contents).

Now, what is important here, and what you might have guessed already, is that you create a 'plugin section' for each plugin that you want to upload to your repository, so basically you'd have to add the following tags (and any info in between) multiple times:

   INFO HERE    

After uploading the XML and your plugins to your server you have already done the bulk of the work.

Now you would start QGIS and open the Plugin Manager, just like you would normally do to find and add plugins. You would have to navigate to the Settings tab, where you can add connections to repositories:

Now you will give the repository a Name (it really does not matter what this name is, but something that makes sense and lets you recognize it; kind of like when you define a database connection in QGIS), and then under URL you would provide the full URL to your XML file on your server (e.g. http://gisiscool.com/gis/plugins/plugins.xml).

That should do it. You can now search and find your own plugins!