I have a couple of question about installing packages:

1.How can I add my RHEL or centos installation CD as a repository for
yum? I noticed that whenever I try to use yum I get the packages from
the internet but not from my CD.
2.After adding the CD as a repository how can I give the CD priority
to ensure that if a packages is available on both my CD and the redhat
network I don’t end up downloading a package that I already have
locally in my disk.
3. On gnome I used to “add and remove software” tool on the
application menu. From there I was able to find openoffice. However
with a “yum –info openoffice” I get nothing. Why is that?

Artificer wrote:
> I have a couple of question about installing packages:

> 1.How can I add my RHEL or centos installation CD as a repository for
> yum? I noticed that whenever I try to use yum I get the packages from
> the internet but not from my CD.

> 2.After adding the CD as a repository how can I give the CD priority
> to ensure that if a packages is available on both my CD and the redhat
> network I don’t end up downloading a package that I already have
> locally in my disk.

You put it in the drive and do something like

yum localinstall

where package is like

/media/CDROM/path/package

However this will go to the web in search of the latest dependencies. Also if
your disk is not the latest the next time it will go online to update/upgrade
and what is on your disk is out of date it will find the latest. So I do not
see what you are going to gain by insisting upon the CD version.

Perhaps you could yum info package before installing.

> 3. On gnome I used to “add and remove software� tool onthe
> application menu. From there I was able to find openoffice. However
> with a “yum –info openoffice� I get nothing. Why is that?

Because nothing is named openoffice. However

yum info openoffice*

will get what you want. It is a quirk that does require some hunting to find
the right way to name what you are looking for. Note it is "info" not "-info".
Also do NOT

yum install openoffice*

As that gets you all the language packs of which there appear to be an
infinite number.

--
Charon won't take counterfeit coins.
-- The Iron Webmaster, 4037
http://www.giwersworld.org/environment/aehb.phtml a2

Artificer wrote:
> I have a couple of question about installing packages:
>
> 1.How can I add my RHEL or centos installation CD as a repository for
> yum? I noticed that whenever I try to use yum I get the packages from
> the internet but not from my CD.

Well, I creatae a local mirror repository for updates and update all my hosts
from that. With CentOS you can use rsync from a local, trusted repository.
With RHEL, you have to register the server, install yum-rhn-plugin, and use
reposync to generate the mirror. Then rip out yum-rhn-plugin on all clients,
or on the server when doing normal package management. (yum-rhn-plugin which
is basically up2date in grandma's clothing, with all of up2date's problems
cleaning its long pointy teeth and avoiding getting poked in its big eyes:
it's a DRM problem that sometimes makes me prefer CentOS.)


> 2.After adding the CD as a repository how can I give the CD priority
> to ensure that if a packages is available on both my CD and the redhat
> network I don’t end up downloading a package that I already have
> locally in my disk.

There are yum plugins for this, for 'protected' and 'preferred' plguins. But
remember yum-rhn-plugin? That nightclad dressed wolf basically drops its
drawers and does something rude on all other yum plugins, and ignores every
repository specific directive: there are no .repo files for the RHN
repositories, so you can only use 'exclude' or '--disable-repo' options. If
you're using RHEL, either create a mirror as I described and rip out
yum-rhn-plugin, or write a wrapper to automatically add --disable-repo commands.

> 3. On gnome I used to “add and remove software” tool on the
> application menu. From there I was able to find openoffice. However
> with a “yum –info openoffice” I get nothing. Why is that?

This is because RHEL 5 Server, in its infinite foolishness, didn't include
OpenOffice in the standard channels. There is an additional channel that
includes, one not turned on by default but available with your subscription.
Go log into your RedHat account and enable it for your registered server.

Artificer wrote:
> I have a couple of question about installing packages:
>
> 1.How can I add my RHEL or centos installation CD as a repository for
> yum? I noticed that whenever I try to use yum I get the packages from
> the internet but not from my CD.
> 2.After adding the CD as a repository how can I give the CD priority
> to ensure that if a packages is available on both my CD and the redhat
> network I don’t end up downloading a package that I already have
> locally in my disk.
> 3. On gnome I used to “add and remove software” tool on the
> application menu. From there I was able to find openoffice. However
> with a “yum –info openoffice” I get nothing. Why is that?

Dear Artificer,


Here you an example of how I would use the RHEL 5.2 DVD as the yum repro.

/etc/yum.repos.d/rhel-dvd-cluster.repo
rhel-dvd-cluster]
name=Red Hat Enterprise Linux $releasever - $basearch - Debug
baseurl=file:///media/dvd/Cluster
enabled=0
gpgcheck=1
gpgkey=file:///etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-redhat-release

/etc/yum.repos.d/rhel-dvd-clusterstorage.repo
[rhel-dvd-clusterstorage]
name=Red Hat Enterprise Linux $releasever - $basearch - Debug
baseurl=file:///media/dvd/ClusterStorage
enabled=0
gpgcheck=1
gpgkey=file:///etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-redhat-release

/etc/yum.repos.d/rhel-dvd.repo
[rhel-dvd]
name=Red Hat Enterprise Linux $releasever - $basearch - Debug
baseurl=file:///media/dvd/Server
enabled=1
gpgcheck=1
gpgkey=file:///etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-redhat-release

/etc/yum.repos.d/rhel-dvd-vt.repo
[rhel-dvd-vt]
name=Red Hat Enterprise Linux $releasever - $basearch - Debug
baseurl=file:///media/dvd/VT
enabled=0
gpgcheck=1
gpgkey=file:///etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-redhat-release

Hint: your RHEL subscription might or might not allow you to change the
enabled=0 (off) to enable=1 (on).

This example shows the RHEL Server 5.2 settings.

It shows as base url a DVD mounted on /media/dvd on //localhost with a
reference to the features you wish to use like Cluster:
baseurl=file:///media/dvd/Cluster

I would use a DVD iso instead of a DVD, due to the fact that you might
want to keep the DVD-player free for other use.


Kind regards,


Jan Gerrit Kootstra

On Thu, 21 Aug 2008 14:09:37 -0700, Artificer typed this message:

> I have a couple of question about installing packages:
>
> 1.How can I add my RHEL or centos installation CD as a repository for
> yum? I noticed that whenever I try to use yum I get the packages from
> the internet but not from my CD.
> 2.After adding the CD as a repository how can I give the CD priority to
> ensure that if a packages is available on both my CD and the redhat
> network I don’t end up downloading a package that I already have locally
> in my disk.
> 3. On gnome I used to “add and remove software� tool on the application
> menu. From there I was able to find openoffice. However with a “yum
> –info openoffice� I get nothing. Why is that?

Other than network throughput I don't see an advantage to using the
installation DVD any longer.

$ man yum.conf

However, what I would do is create a repo.conf with the contents from
/etc/yum.repos.d/ as desired, ie, DVD as base or the only repos in
repos.conf for example:


[main]
cachedir=/var/cache/yum
debuglevel=2
logfile=/var/log/yum.log

[CENTOS DVD]
name=Centos or RHEL
baseurl=file:///media/"CENTOS DVD5"
gpgcheck=1



Then you can run
$ yum -c ~/repos.conf install packagename

Thanks everybody!