> 1) yum (and the server-side tool yum-arch) manage a bunch of meta-data > in addition to just he rpms. That won't be set up correctly for > PC1 to act like a server. > > 2) you won't hava all the rpms you need. Yum only downloads those > rpms that it needs. So if you try to install xemacs on PC2, but > that rpm hasn't been install recently on PC1, then the rpm won't be > available. > > I think you have two real options (with a sane amount of effort): > > a) mirror the whole yum repository on PC1 and run yum-arch. This will > take a lot of space and you'll probably download a bunch of > packages that you never use anywhere. > > b) set PC1 up so that you can connect THROUGH it to the internet with > PC1. This can be done with iptables, nat, and ip_forward. This > has the disadvantage that if you install xemacs on both machines, > you'll have to download it twice, which is a PITA via dialup. > > There are other tricks, but they're more complex. Anyone else have > any thoughts? yah - some simple ones to decrease your download times. when yum updates/installs rpms it creates an rpm cache in /var/cache/yum/[someservername]/packages/ if you copy the rpms in those directories on PC1 over to the same directories on PC2 then yum will just use those cached rpms and not download them again. For A LOT of updates on general workstations this will save A LOT of time and energy. -sv
