Browsing the package server in a browser
This page is for anyone who wants to see what is on the package server without a command line. It explains the pages you get when you open the server in a browser, what each column means, and where to look when a page does not tell you enough.
Contents
- Where to start
- The listing pages
- What the columns mean
- Opening files
- What the listing does not show
- The same files on GitHub
- From the setup wizard
- Related pages
Where to start
| Open | You see |
|---|---|
| https://exponential.packages.exponential.earth/ | the top level: exponential/, CNAME, README.md, crossdomain.xml |
| https://exponential.packages.exponential.earth/exponential/6.0/ | one folder per release, 6.0.0 to 6.0.15 |
| https://exponential.packages.exponential.earth/exponential/6.0/6.0.15/ | the packages of 6.0.15, index.xml and thumbnails/ |
| https://exponential.packages.exponential.earth/exponential/6.0/6.0.15/thumbnails/ | the site package pictures |
Each address ends in /. Without it, the server answers with a redirect to the address with /.
The listing pages
The pages titled "Index of /..." are not written by hand. A GitHub Actions workflow in the server's repository runs
the github-pages-directory-listing action on every
push, which writes an index.html into each folder before GitHub Pages publishes it
(The package server on GitHub).
A listing page has:
- the heading "Index of /exponential/6.0/6.0.15" (the path of the folder);
- a
../row that leads one folder up; - one row per folder first, then one row per file, each with an icon for its kind;
- a table with the columns Name, Size and Last Modified.
The page loads its styles from a public CDN, so it looks plain when the browser blocks outside scripts. The links work either way.
What the columns mean
| Column | Meaning | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Name | the file or folder; a folder ends in / | sevenx_multisite.ezpkg |
| Size | the file size, in units of 1024 bytes labeled KB and MB; - for a folder | 89.16 KB |
| Last Modified | the time the file was written by the deployment run, in UTC | 2026-10-16 20:42:40 UTC |
Note
Last Modified is the time of the last deployment, not of the last change to the file. Every push rebuilds the whole site, so all files of the site show the same time. To see when a package really changed, look at its history on GitHub (below).
Opening files
| File | What the browser does |
|---|---|
index.xml | shows the XML (served as application/xml); the site packages are at the end (The index.xml format) |
*.ezpkg | downloads the archive (served as application/octet-stream) |
thumbnails/*.png | shows the picture |
README.md | shows or downloads the Markdown text, depending on the browser |
A downloaded .ezpkg is a gzip compressed tar archive. Most archive tools open it after you rename it to
.tar.gz; on the command line tar -tzf lists it as it is
(Downloading a package by hand).
What the listing does not show
- Hidden folders. The top-level page lists
.git/and.github/, but GitHub Pages does not serve folders that start with a dot: those links answer404. Read.github/on GitHub instead. - Versions and descriptions. A listing knows file names and sizes only. The summary, version and type of each
package are in
index.xml. - Which packages an installation uses. An installation reads one release folder, the one its
RemotePackagesIndexURLnames (Package server settings). - History. Earlier versions of a package are not kept on the site; a fix replaces the file in its release folder. Git keeps every earlier version.
The same files on GitHub
The repository shows the same tree with history:
| You want | Open |
|---|---|
| the tree | https://github.com/se7enxweb/exponential.packages.exponential.earth |
| the commits that changed one package | the file in the tree, then History |
| the deployments | the repository's Actions tab |
Large files are not shown as text on GitHub; use Download raw file, or the package server address, to get them. Each commit names the package it changed, for example "Updated: The cjw_multisite package's installer activates ezownerchange".
From the setup wizard
The Site package step of the setup wizard links to the server in two places
(design/standard/templates/setup/init/site_types.tpl):
- with an error, "Remote repository URL:" followed by the release folder it tried
(
RemotePackagesIndexURL); - under Additional packages, "Full archive of all packages can be found here", which opens
RemotePackagesIndexURLBase, by default https://exponential.packages.exponential.earth/exponential.
Related pages
- Site packages: start here
- The package server
- What is on the package server
- The package server on GitHub
- Downloading a package by hand
- Free documentation: this page is free to copy, translate and improve under the GNU FDL 1.3.
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