CentOS - Oct 2008 - Creating a controlled local repo

Hi all,

I've been thinking about creating a local repo for our to-be CentOS-park
(we're currently in the process of migrating from RHEL3 to CentOS5). 
	As we need to control all updates being applied (think WUS, Windows
Update Server) because of special software being run on servers and clients,
we must check first that our molecular modeling software doesn't bite the
grass should eg X, the kernel (and breaking the proprietary nvidia gfx-drivers
in the process) etc be updated in a "non-approved" way.

Therefore I've planned to create a local repo on one of our servers, share
/var/cache/yum, set keepcache to 1 on that server and have it reposync
periodically (like once a week) with CentOS Base, Extras, rpmforge and so on.

On the clients I'd disable all standard repos, and only have the clients yum
update from the aforementioned local repo server.

Would this work? Or is there a cleaner/nicer/better/simpler way to do this?
Gotchas' maybe? Any feedback is appreciated.

Thx in advance.
-- 
BW,
	Sorin
-----------------------------------------------------------
# Sorin Srbu				[Sysadmin]                    
# Dept of Medicinal Chemistry,	Phone: +46 (0)18-4714482 >3 signals> GSM
# Div of Org Pharm Chem,		Mobile: +46 (0)701-718023
# Box 574, Uppsala University,	Fax: +46 (0)18-4714482
# SE-751 23 Uppsala, Sweden	Visit: BMC, Husargatan 3, D5:512b
#					Web: http://www.orgfarm.uu.se
-----------------------------------------------------------
# ()  ASCII ribbon campaign - Against html E-mail 
# /\
#
# MotD follows:
# Wit levels low. Attempting to compensate.

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: smime.p7s
Type: application/x-pkcs7-signature
Size: 5126 bytes
Desc: not available
URL:
<http://lists.centos.org/pipermail/centos/attachments/20081023/38872f91/attachment-0003.bin>

Sorin Srbu wrote:
...
> Therefore I've planned to create a local repo on one of our servers,
share
> /var/cache/yum, set keepcache to 1 on that server and have it reposync
> periodically (like once a week) with CentOS Base, Extras, rpmforge and so
on.
Why not make a "real" mirror using rsync, test new updates on a test
test machine, and run "yum update" on the clients when the test
machine is ok?

You could risk getting into trouble updating via a shared
/var/cache/yum when CentOS 5.3, 5.4, etc. comes out.

Use nvidia-x11-drv from rpmforge to get updated nvidia drivers.

Mogens

-- 
Mogens Kjaer, Carlsberg A/S, Computer Department
Gamle Carlsberg Vej 10, DK-2500 Valby, Denmark
Phone: +45 33 27 53 25, Mobile: +45 22 12 53 25
Email: mk at crc.dk Homepage: http://www.crc.dk