--- title: 'HOWTO: Host your own SNAP store!' description: SNAPs are the cross-distro, cross-cloud, cross-device Linux packaging format of the future.  And we’re already hosting a fantastic catalog of SNAPs in the SNAP store provided by Canonical.  Developers are welcome to publish their software for […] url: https://canonical.com/blog/howto-host-your-own-snap-store-2?format=md --- 1. [Blog](https://canonical.com/blog) 2. Article --- [Dustin Kirkland](https://canonical.com/blog/author/kirkland "More about Dustin Kirkland") 24 June 2016 # HOWTO: Host your own SNAP store! [Snaps](https://canonical.com/blog/tag/snaps) [Ubuntu Core](https://canonical.com/blog/tag/ubuntu-core) --- Share the article SNAPs are the cross-distro, cross-cloud, cross-device Linux [packaging format of the future](https://insights.ubuntu.com/2016/06/14/universal-snap-packages-launch-on-multiple-linux-distros/).  And we’re already hosting a fantastic catalog of SNAPs in the SNAP store provided by Canonical.  Developers are [welcome to publish](https://developer.ubuntu.com/en/snappy/build-apps/upload-your-snap/) their software for distribution across hundreds millions of Ubuntu servers, desktops, and devices. Several people have [asked](https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/4fttr9/so_is_ubuntus_new_snappy_packaging_basically_a/) the inevitable open source software [question](https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel-discuss/2016-June/016644.html), *“SNAPs are awesome, but how can I stand up my own SNAP store?!?”* The answer is really quite simple…  *SNAP stores are really just HTTP web servers!*  Of course, you can get fancy with branding, and authentication, and certificates.  But if you just want to host SNAPs and enable downstream users to fetch and install software, well, it’s pretty trivial. In fact, [Bret Barker](https://github.com/noise) has published an open source ([Apache License](https://github.com/noise/snapstore/blob/master/LICENSE)) SNAP store on [GitHub](https://github.com/noise/snapstore/).  We’re already looking at how to flesh out his proof-of-concept and bring it into *[snapcore](https://github.com/snapcore)* itself. Here’s a little *HOWTO* install and use it. First, I launched an instance in AWS.  Of course I could have launched an Ubuntu 16.04 LTS instance, but actually, I launched a Fedora 24 instance!  In fact, you could run your SNAP store on any OS that currently supports SNAPs, really, or even just [fork this GitHub repo](https://github.com/noise/snapstore) and install it stand alone..  See [snapcraft.io](http://snapcraft.io/). Now, let’s find and install a *snapstore* SNAP.  (Note that in this AWS instance of Fedora 24, I also had to ‘sudo yum install squashfs-tools kernel-modules’. At this point, you’re running a SNAP store (webserver) on port 5000. Now, let’s reconfigure *snapd* to talk to our own SNAP store, and search for a SNAP. Finally, let’s install and inspect that SNAP. How about that?  Easy enough! Cheers, Dustin [Get in touch Interested in running Ubuntu in your organization?](https://ubuntu.com/about/contact-us/form) ## Sign up for our newsletter Get the latest Canonical news and updates in your inbox. 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