I need to setup a custom yum repo to supply some packages that are not in CentOS, and some that are but have been patched and/or are different versions. Not much of a big deal.

In order to limit conflict with CentOS packages, I am using a prefix other than /usr. All my packages that also have existing versions in CentOS are installed under this new prefix to prevent any conflict with the CentOS package. My main issue is I would like yum (and rpm) to be happy with this coexistence.

Is the only way to do this by giving my packages a different name rather than just twiddling the release number?

For example, CentOS has libpcap-0.8.3, I need to supply a patched libpcap-0.8.4 but I don't want it to replace the 0.8.3 package, so I've modified the package name to be like <something>.libpcap-0.8.3...

I know this may same weird, but is prefixing the package name a sane approach to this?

On a related note, I also supply a modified kernel and I don't want yum to replace the kernel when its updated on a CentOS mirror. Is the best way to do this with a the ignore option in the yum repo configuration?

Thanks, Jason