CentOS - Mar 2008 - question about network repositories

Hi

I'm thinking about setting up a local / LAN respository for my CentOS, 
and probably other (Fedora Core) disto's, but have never done it before, 
so here's some questions:

If I setup a repository, can it hold different distro's / architectures 
& versions? Say for example, CentOS 4 (i386 & x64), CentOS 5.0 & 5.1
(i386 & x64) - will each one have it's own folder?
Will it also be possible to only download the packages that are needed, 
instead of the whole 4GB repository from the upstream provider? I have 
some of the CD's or DVD's for all of the distro's, so really only
need a
few packages now and then, and instead of getting them from the net 
everytime, get them from the LAN repository?

Then, how would I do this?

-- 

Kind Regards
Rudi Ahlers
CEO, SoftDux

Web:   http://www.SoftDux.com
Check out my technical blog, http://blog.softdux.com for Linux or other
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On Mon, Mar 3, 2008 at 12:05 PM, Rudi Ahlers <Rudi at softdux.com>
wrote:
> Hi
>
>  I'm thinking about setting up a local / LAN respository for my CentOS,
>  and probably other (Fedora Core) disto's, but have never done it
before,
>  so here's some questions:
>
>  If I setup a repository, can it hold different distro's /
architectures
>  & versions? Say for example, CentOS 4 (i386 & x64), CentOS 5.0
& 5.1
>  (i386 & x64) - will each one have it's own folder?
>  Will it also be possible to only download the packages that are needed,
>  instead of the whole 4GB repository from the upstream provider? I have
>  some of the CD's or DVD's for all of the distro's, so really
only need a
>  few packages now and then, and instead of getting them from the net
>  everytime, get them from the LAN repository?
>
>  Then, how would I do this?
Easy way to do this would be to set up mrepo from rpmforge. It does
nearly all the dirty work for you.

-- 
During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.
George Orwell

Rudi Ahlers wrote:
> 
> Hi
> 
> I'm thinking about setting up a local / LAN respository for my CentOS, 
> and probably other (Fedora Core) disto's, but have never done it
before,
> so here's some questions:
> 
> If I setup a repository, can it hold different distro's / architectures
> & versions? Say for example, CentOS 4 (i386 & x64), CentOS 5.0
& 5.1
> (i386 & x64) - will each one have it's own folder?
> Will it also be possible to only download the packages that are needed, 
> instead of the whole 4GB repository from the upstream provider? I have 
> some of the CD's or DVD's for all of the distro's, so really
only need a
> few packages now and then, and instead of getting them from the net 
> everytime, get them from the LAN repository?
If the distros are from the same family, ie RHEL/CentOS/Fedora, then it
is pretty safe to use 1 repo for the family.

You will need to separate the different architectures though i386/x86_64.
> Then, how would I do this?
My repo directories are setup like such:

<Repo Name>
    +- SRPMS
    |
    +- i386
    |    +- RPMS
    |
    +- x86_64
         +- RPMS

Then in i386 I run 'createrepo' (of course install createrepo first!),
and in x86_64 I run 'createrepo'.

Then I just create a simple <Repo Name>.repo file /etc/yum.repos.d
like such:

[Repo Name]
name=Repo Name Packages for Linux
baseurl=http://software/Software/Repo Name/Linux/$basearch
enabled=1
priority=0
gpgcheck=0

I leave setting up Apache as an exercise in well, setting up Apache.

Hint: Setup mime type .rpm as text/plain otherwise rpm chokes.

Afterwards you could get fancy and create an RPM with the .repo
file in it, and/or setup gpg keys for signing your RPMS.

-Ross

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