I've tried to set up a trivial repository with binary .debs for internal use, but apt-get doesn't see the packages. I've done the following:

On the web server:

1. Created the binary debs with dpkg-buildpackage
2. Put all of the binary debs in a web-accessible directory which corresponds to http://www.example.com/packages

3. Generated a Packages.gz file in the same directory by doing:

   dpkg-scansources . /dev/null | gzip -9c > Packages.gz

On the client machine:

Added the following line to my /etc/apt/sources.list file:

deb http://www.example.com/packages /

Ran: sudo apt-get update

The output related to my trivial repository looked like this:

Ign http://www.example.com  Release.gpg
Ign http://www.example.com/packages/  Translation-en_US
Ign http://www.example.com  Release
Ign http://www.example.com  Packages
Ign http://www.example.com  Packages
Hit http://www.example.com  Packages

But I can't install the package by name. For example, there's a package called "python-nova" which corresponds to package python-nova_2011.3-custom~bzr680-0ubuntu1_all.deb

I've tried to do: apt-get install python-nova, but I get the following error:

$ sudo apt-get install python-nova
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
E: Couldn't find package python-nova