A plug-in that I want to install provides an update site for installation. However, the Eclipse installation that I want to install it to is on a machine that is not connected to the Internet. Is there a way for me to access the site (HTTP, FTP, etc.) to download the files in it for offline installation?
Eclipse plugins usually depend on other plugins. It's kind of hard to trace the dependencies. It's better to download all dependencies using update site once, and you can distribute to other Eclipse dropins. For Eclipse 3.4 or newer, you can use dropins which is an Eclipse feature. This way you don’t have to install plugin from update site every time you have to re-install your Eclipse. Read on http://michsan.web.id/content/how-install-eclipse-plugins-offline
If you can't see the web, I'll give you some description
Prepare directory for external plugins
Create special directory to hold our beloved plugins, e.g. in /home/ichsan/eclipse-dropins we will install Maven plugin: m2eclipse.
mkdir /home/ichsan/eclipse-dropins
For now on, we'll call this directory as DROPINS
Preparing sandbox
Next, by using Git we'll create an Eclipse sandbox. The point is to install one plugin on a fresh Eclipse. Instead of installing fresh Eclipse every time we want to install a new plugin, we'd better use Git to create new branch of fresh Eclipse.
First, extract/install new Eclipse to a directory e.g. /home/ichsan/eclipse-sandbox (so that we'll find /home/ichsan/eclipse-sandbox/eclipse.ini). We call the directory as ECLIPSE_SANDBOX.
Next, commit the fresh installation. This step should be done once only.
cd $ECLIPSE_SANDBOX
git init
git add .
git commit -am "Fresh Eclipse"
Install plugin on sandbox
Now is the interesting part. Supposed we have to install m2eclipse plugin. We will install this on new Git branch so that the master branch will stay clean or stay intact.
cd $ECLIPSE_SANDBOX
git checkout -b "m2eclipse"
Now, we start the Eclipse of the ECLIPSE_SANDBOX and download the p