Setting up an aggregated Eclipse update site for your team with b3 aggregator

b3 Agregator is an Eclipse application used to generate main Eclipse Helios and Eclipse Indigo update sites.
It might be very useful if you need to make an aggregated Eclipse update site with pre-configured set of plugins and categories for your team or just simply want to make Eclipse update sites available behind the corporate firewall.

One of the main requirements behind the b3 aggregator was the generation of validated and consistent update site, that contains only such items that are compatible and could be installed together.

Because the majority of Eclipse plugins are singletons, this means that b3 aggregator will mirror only a one, typically most recent version of a plug-in. In other words, b3 aggregator can't do a "plain mirroring" of all available plug-in versions.

Install b3 Aggregator:

1. Download Eclipse SDK to the any machine that has Internet access
2. Install b3 Aggregator Editor by using http://download.eclipse.org/modeling/emft/b3/updates-3.7 as an update site

Create and configure an aggregation:

1. Create new general Eclipse project
2. Add new "Repository Aggregation" file
3. In the Aggregation Editor select Aggregation node and define "Build Root" (location where you want to store resulting update site) and "Label" properties
4. Using the Aggregation node context menu add new "Validation Set" and call it "Eclipse Core"
5. Under the "Validation Set" create new "Contribution" and give it the same label "Eclipse core"
6. For the "Contribution" create new "Mapped Repository" and specify desirable main Eclipse update site location as a URL (i.e. http://download.eclipse.org/releases/indigo)
7. Under the Aggregation node add one or more "Configurations" or platforms you want to support (i.e. "win32, x86", "linux, gtk, x86_64", etc.)

That's it, now you should be able to build your Eclipse update site!

Optionally, you may also:

1. Configure one or more "Custom Categories" (i.e. "Recommended software" for your team) under the "Aggregation" node
• It is necessary to specify a non-empty "Label", "Identifier" and "Description" to avoid error messages in client's Eclipse log. See Bug#362894 for details. 
2. Repeat steps 4 - 6 for if you want to aggregate and mirror more update sites
• Don't forget to make additional "Validation Sets" to extend the "Eclipse core", otherwise b3 will complain about missing dependencies 
3. Define "Valid Configuration Rules" for platform-dependent extensions, like "epp.package.linuxtools"