[CentOS] Can up2date use a local yum mirror?

Alfred von Campe alfred at 110.net
Wed Jan 31 17:09:27 UTC 2007


On Jan 30, 2007, at 23:38, Johnny Hughes wrote:

> up2date uses yum headers that are created by yum-arch ... where as  
> yum >
> 2.2 (the version in CentOS-4 is 2.4 currently) uses metadata  
> created by
> createrepo.

Ah, this is very interesting and useful information I didn't know.

> If you used yum-arch to create yum headers for your local yum repos,
> then you can adjust up2date (and therefore also rhn-applet) to use a
> local repo by adjusting /etc/sysconfig/rhn/sources.

My local mirror is just a nightly rsync from one of the CentOS mirrors.

> up2date can even use (though not very well) createrepo metadata using
> the repomd type repo .. however, rhn-applet will not work that way.
> That is why the centos mirrors have both yum-arch and createrepo type
> metadata.

So if I update /etc/sysconfig/rhn/sources to point at my local mirror  
up2date will just magically work since it has the yum-arch headers?

> Remember that yum (and not up2date) was designed as the primary method
> for package management for CentOS.  Up2date is provided with the RHN
> parts removed, and is functional, but yum is recommended.  In fact,
> up2date would not have been retained at all if it were not for the  
> rhn-
> applet.

But it is exactly the applet that is causing me to go down this  
path.  The big red throbbing icon in the menu is too tempting for  
users to ignore some times.  I don't want up2date to get packages  
from an external source if there is a CentOS mirror on the same subnet!

> It is also worth noting that all the things that we do with yum  
> plugins
> (fastest mirror, protect base, priorities, etc.) _DO_NOT_ work with
> up2date.

These plugins are not as critical when using a local mirror (IMHO).

THanks for all the info,
Alfred




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