If you use Gentoo in a wide deployment it can be very useful to make your own overlay. These overlays can add new ebuilds as well as system profiles.
Create the Overlay Repository
mkdir my-overlay ; cd my-overlay mkdir eclass licenses metadata profiles sets
The Overlay Repository XML file needs to be present, follow this annotated example.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <repositories version="1.0"> <repo priority="50" status="unofficial"> <name>edoceo-praxis</name> <description>Edoceo profile and Packages</description> <homepage>http://edoceo.com/praxis</homepage> <owner> <email>edoceo@gmail.com</email> <name>Edoceo, Inc</name> </owner> <source type="git">git://github.com/edoceo/praxis.git</source> <feed>https://github.com/edoceo/praxis/commits/master.atom</feed> </repo> </repositories>
This file should be made available in a location that is easy to find and reference but also be available in the repository.
EG: http://edoceo.com/praxis/overlay.xml.
Then, check to make sure that layman can find the overlay properly.
Add this Layout
emerge -av >=app-portage/layman-2.3.0 layman -o http://edoceo.com/praxis/overlay.xml --list layman -f -o http://edoceo.com/praxis/overlay.xml -a edoceo-praxis
Now add the Metadata Layout into ./metadata/layout.conf.
masters = gentoo thin-manifests = true
Additional Options
Once all of your systems are pulling and using the same overlay, you can supplement this with an Portage Binhost.