Chapter 8. Advanced YUM repository management
We eill examin all the native tools available in Fedora for the YUM repository management.
8.1. Repository creation with createrepo
In this section we will create an example yum repository from a set of rpm packages. But first it is necessary to install the createrepo tool.
# yum install createrepo
# createrepo -h
Usage: genpkgmetadata.py [options]
Options:
--version show program's version number and exit
-h, --help show this help message and exit
-q, --quiet output nothing except for serious errors
-v, --verbose output more debugging info.
--profile output timing/profile info.
-x EXCLUDES, --excludes=EXCLUDES
files to exclude
--basedir=BASEDIR basedir for path to directories
-u BASEURL, --baseurl=BASEURL
baseurl to append on all files
-g GROUPFILE, --groupfile=GROUPFILE
path to groupfile to include in metadata
-s SUMTYPE, --checksum=SUMTYPE
specify the checksum type to use (default: sha256)
-p, --pretty make sure all xml generated is formatted
-c CACHEDIR, --cachedir=CACHEDIR
set path to cache dir
-C, --checkts check timestamps on files vs the metadata to seeif we
need to update
-d, --database create sqlite database files
--update use the existing repodata to speed up creation of new
--update-md-path=UPDATE_MD_PATH
use the existing repodata for --update from this path
--skip-stat skip the stat() call on a --update, assumes if the
filename is the same then the file is still the
same(only use this if you're fairly trusting or
gullible)
--split generate split media
-i PKGLIST, --pkglist=PKGLIST
use only the files listed in this file from
thedirectory specified
-n INCLUDEPKG, --includepkg=INCLUDEPKG
add this pkg to the list - can be specified multiple
times
-o OUTPUTDIR, --outputdir=OUTPUTDIR
<dir> = optional directory to output to
-S, --skip-symlinks ignore symlinks of packages
--changelog-limit=CHANGELOG_LIMIT
only import the last N changelog entries
--unique-md-filenames
include the file's checksum in the filename,helps with
proxies
--distro=DISTRO distro tag and optional cpeid:
--distro'cpeid,textname'
--content=CONTENT_TAGS
tags for the content in the repository
--revision=REVISION user-specified revision for this repository
--deltas create delta rpms and metadata
--oldpackagedirs=OLDPACKAGE_PATHS
paths to look for older pkgs to delta against
--num-deltas=NUM_DELTAS
the number of older versions to make deltas against
The procedure is simple, we have to create a directory to hold the repository, put the rpms provided by developers and packagers there, and then execute createrepo specifying the directory where the rpms reside.
# mkdir /var/www/html/x86_64/
# cp -ar /home/makerpm/rpmbuild/RPMS/x86_64/*rpm /var/www/html/x86_64/
# createrepo --verbose /var/www/html/x86_64/
1/14 - dhcp_probe-1.3.0-2.fc13.x86_64.rpm
2/14 - dhcp_probe-debuginfo-1.3.0-2.fc13.x86_64.rpm
3/14 - rubygem-pg-0.9.0-1.fc13.x86_64.rpm
4/14 - dhcp_probe-1.3.0-4.fc13.x86_64.rpm
5/14 - iptables-debuginfo-1.4.5-1.fc12.x86_64.rpm
6/14 - passenger-debuginfo-2.2.15-1.fc13.x86_64.rpm
7/14 - iptables-ipv6-1.4.5-1.fc12.x86_64.rpm
8/14 - dhcp_probe-debuginfo-1.3.0-4.fc13.x86_64.rpm
9/14 - iptables-devel-1.4.5-1.fc12.x86_64.rpm
10/14 - dhcp_probe-debuginfo-1.3.0-3.fc13.x86_64.rpm
11/14 - dhcp_probe-1.3.0-3.fc13.x86_64.rpm
12/14 - dhcp_probe-debuginfo-1.3.0-1.fc13.x86_64.rpm
13/14 - passenger-2.2.15-1.fc13.x86_64.rpm
14/14 - iptables-1.4.5-1.fc12.x86_64.rpm
Saving Primary metadata
Saving file lists metadata
Saving other metadata
It can be easily checked that the previous process has created a repodata directory with the metadata representing and conforming the new repository.
# ls /var/www/html/x86_64/repodata/
filelists.xml.gz other.xml.gz primary.xml.gz repomd.xml
Once the metadata for the YUM repository is created, it is time to make it available. In this example we will create a local configuration using the file:/// access method that will allow us to access the recently created repository.
/etc/yum.repos.d/rubyera.repo
[rubyera]
name=Rubyera repo
baseurl=file:///var/www/html/x86_64
enabled=1
gpgcheck=0
To verify the availability of the new repository the repoquery tool can be used.
# repoquery -q --repoid=rubyera -a
dhcp_probe-0:1.3.0-4.fc13.x86_64
dhcp_probe-debuginfo-0:1.3.0-4.fc13.x86_64
iptables-0:1.4.5-1.fc12.x86_64
iptables-debuginfo-0:1.4.5-1.fc12.x86_64
iptables-devel-0:1.4.5-1.fc12.x86_64
iptables-ipv6-0:1.4.5-1.fc12.x86_64
passenger-0:2.2.15-1.fc13.x86_64
passenger-debuginfo-0:2.2.15-1.fc13.x86_64
rubygem-pg-0:0.9.0-1.fc13.x86_64
