I made some progress, so am answering myself, and maybe someone else can
help me along.
I am hoping someone else is already doing what I need to do, and can give
me some pointers.
Situation:
1. I am running Centos 4.3 x86_64 on a machine at home, without broadband
access. I have dialup access, but that doesn't work very well for
something like "yum update", so I am still running 4.3 as issued on the CDs.
2. I have high speed access at work, and I have a USB drive to move files
from work to home.
Proposed solution (other than get broadband):
A. Make a "pretend repo" on the hard drive of home machine by:
1. Install yum "index" file for each repo in directories at home. Use
rsync via dialup to keep those repo "indexes" up to date (after
initial install). [A sample rsync command line would be helpful.]
I got rsync working. So far I have imported all the files in the
"repodata" directory, but yum only seems to use primary.xml.gz and
repomd.xml. Do I need to have the other files (filelists.xml.gz,
other.xml.gz)? They are much bigger than the two that are getting used, so
if I don't need them, it will speed up the updating process a lot.
2. Persuade yum to give me a list of packages (that I need to download
in order to execute a package install or update) and capture that
list in a format that I can feed into rsync (at work).
I don't know if I succeeded or failed at this one. I issue a
"yum resolvedep xorg-x11" command, all I get back is:
Searching Packages for Dependency:
Setting up repositories
Reading repository metadata in from local files
0:xorg-x11-6.8.2-1.EL.13.25.1.x86_64
I am fairly certain that I have to install the libraries when upgrading a
big package like X11, so the response is a bit baffling to me.
when I running "yum deplist xorg-x11" I get pages and pages of dependencies
without any indication of which packages I already have on my computer, and
which I don't. I ran "yum deplist firefox", which I just installed, and
yum gave me the pages of dependencies, but the packages are already there.
What I need is a list of all the packages I need to download to install
that package, so I can go to work, download them all, bring them home,
transfer them to the computer, and turn yum loose to do the install.
3. Have a way to separate package list into three categories:
a. Packages already in correct version my local repository.
b. Packages needing an update in my local repo.
c. Packages I need to download wholesale.
4. Have a way to copy list of packages needing updates to USB drive.
5. Take list of packages to work, and use rsync to transfer/update the
packages onto the USB drive.
I only wanted two packages today (Firefox 1.5 and Thunderbird 1.5), so I
just did the download "by hand".
6. Bring USB drive home and dump contents into local repo.
Did it "by hand"
7. Run yum to do the updates.
Ran just fine, but these packages had no unresolved dependencies.
I think this is how to do things in general terms, but I could use a good
bit of help in coming up with some scripts to automate/semiautomate the
process. I think #3 may be the hardest one to automate.
Anyone doing this? Anyone good with rsync and yum, and care to give me a
starting point, even if your try is untested? Console approach is fine
(GUI OK too), but I am new to yum (moving from Mandriva), and have used
rsync a few times successfully, but am no master at it.
Also, I have 4 install disks. Which repos are on those disks, and which
repos are on which ones?
I came to the conclusion that my 4 disks constitute the "base" install. Am
I right?
> Ted Miller
CentOS 4.3 x86_64
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