On Mon, 22 Nov 2004 13:07:55 +0000, Timothy Murphy <tim@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > But could I nominate /var/cache/yum on my desktop as a yum repository, > for use by other machines on my home LAN? you can "nominate" any collection of rpms in any directory as a local repository... once you learn how to use createrepo to generate repository metadata.. and figure out how to share that directory via ftp or http. > > Incidentally, I haven't understood how one keeps the metadata > on a local repository up to date. > Is one meant to run createrepo repeatedly? Anytime you change the packages available in the repository...yes you have to run createrepo. That's sort of the point... the metadata is an accurate representation of the packages available at that location. You make any changes to the list of packages in the repository and you regenerate the metadata. If you mirror another repository and mirror all its packages and its metadata, you don't have to do anything with createrepo...the mirroring process if you do it correctly...keeps the metadata and the package list in sync. If you selectively pull packages from a repository into a local directory, then you have to regenerate metadata with createrepo that is specific to the small collection of packages you have locally if you plan to use that local packagegroup as a repo. I'd like to point out that yum's package cache is a selective pull of packages and is not a complete mirror. If you plan to use yum's packace cache you need to run createrepo against the directory to regenerate the metadata everytime you cache a new update. -jef