Can Yum/RedCarpet save rpm locally for multi-box update?

panomax · #1 4th March 2004, 06:35 PM

I need to maintain several Linux boxes with similar settings. So it would be a great waste if each box needs to check available updates and download them from the Web.

Can yum/RedCarpet just save the downloaded rpms locally so that other boxes just fetch these rpms locally?

I know from this forum that yum can update from local source. How about Red Carpet?

Generally, will yum/RedCarpet delete all rpms after finishing updating? Or they do save those rpms somewhere?

From security viewpoint, it would be better to set up an "update" server who fetches rpms from the Web. Other boxes just update from this update server after verification done on the update server.

panomax · #2 4th March 2004, 07:01 PM

I know yum / RedCarpet keep downloaded rpms in cache. But I don't want to mix up the lastest rpms with previous ones. Remember, there are other boxes to be updated

Is there an option in yum / RedCarpet to assign a location for latest download?

Or I have to use "yum clean" before a new update? Has RedCarpet the equivalent option of clean?

p.s. I havn't use either yum or RedCarpet yet.

CitizenDan · #3 7th March 2004, 05:08 PM

If you've got several machines that share architecture (e.g. all i386) and you have a machine with enough disk to handle it, set up a local Yum repository to handle your update traffic.

Good HOWTOs for setting up a local repository are available here and here.

You don't have to use 'yum clean' before an update, but yum does not remove package files after an update run. Just run 'yum clean' or 'yum clean packages' every now ad then to get rid of the old stuff.

panomax · #4 9th March 2004, 06:39 PM

Thanks. Chris. I checked these two how-to's. They all create a mirror, which is just too much for most people. Like in my case, I only install about 570 rpms. There is no benefit to keep a mirror of more than 1000 rpms that I never use.

Since yum can automatically detect what rpms should be updated, I would like to download only those rpms that I use. ON average, there could be just 20 to 300 those rpms each day. So I want to know if there is a way to share just these rpms (570 at most, and just a few on most days) to the cluster of my Linux box.

The mirror way is still a great waste. I think my case is not uncommon. BTW, how many rpms do you actually use?

CitizenDan · #5 11th March 2004, 12:04 AM

My day-to-day machine shows 639 packages installed, but I'm sure that there are lots that I'm not using. My 'server' machine shows 450 packages loaded (no X).

If all of your machines are the same arch and use the same repos you could set up a shared Yum cache like such:

- On your central machine, NFS (or Samba) export /var/cache/yum (you'll have to export it RW).
- On each subsidiary machine set up autofs to automount the exported yum cache to a location like /misc/yum (automounter takes control of the mount point parent, so automount won't work well with /var/cache). Make sure they mount it RW.
- On each subsidiary machine update yum.conf to use /misc/yum as the cache dir.

You can then run 'yum update' on the primary machine and 'yum -C update' on your subsidiary machines. Run 'yum clean packages' after updating the last subsidiary machine to clear out the package cache as needed.

This method should keep you from having to download the bulk of the updates more than once, though you'll still have some one-offs for things that are difference between machines (for example, if one has VNC installed and the others do not). Do note - I have not tested this, so it's all theoretical. Let me know if it works!

panomax · #6 11th March 2004, 10:21 PM

Chris, you are so helpful. As I said, I never used yum (just rpm) before. I would like to try what you suggested. Just some more questions before I go:

1. yum vs. RedCarpet, which is better? Can we do the same with RedCarpet?

2. maybe digress, I never used NFS. I prefer Samba. Do you agree that Samba can be a good replacement of NFS? At least when Windows is envolved, I think.

3. Not so sure about the automount vs. /var/cache issue you mentioned. Could you explain?

4. About the diff between boxes issue, I assume that yum will do update like "rpm -F". Is it possible to add some "include/exclude" control so yum can fetch some new rpms even when they are not installed in the central box?

Thanks.

CitizenDan · #7 12th March 2004, 12:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by panomax

1. yum vs. RedCarpet, which is better? Can we do the same with RedCarpet?

I've used both, and find that yum is far more flexible. Red Carpet also requires a daemon process (rcd), while yum does not. I prefer yum.

Quote:

Originally Posted by panomax

2. maybe digress, I never used NFS. I prefer Samba. Do you agree that Samba can be a good replacement of NFS? At least when Windows is envolved, I think.

I'm a old-school Unix guy so I tend to gravitate toward the old standbys, but Samba will work just fine for this purpose. NFS might be a touch quicker to set up if you're learning each from scratch.

Quote:

Originally Posted by panomax

3. Not so sure about the automount vs. /var/cache issue you mentioned. Could you explain?

Autofs takes over the base mount point where it automounts filesystems. What this means is that if you try to automount /var/cache/yum, you'd lose access to everything else under /var/cache. Not a good solution. The better way is to mount the remote yum cache under /misc (which is set up for automount). You will have to change the cachedir value in yum.conf to =/misc/yum if you go this route.

Quote:

Originally Posted by panomax

4. About the diff between boxes issue, I assume that yum will do update like "rpm -F". Is it possible to add some "include/exclude" control so yum can fetch some new rpms even when they are not installed in the central box?

There are exclude options for yum, but not include options. If you use a yum cache from a central machine, your subsidiary machines will still download the rpms that they need that are not cached (e.g. rpms that are needed on a subsidiary machine but not on the central machine). That's why you'll need to export and mount the cache dir RW.

Lastly, take a good read through the man page for yum.conf ('man yum.conf'). There's loads of good info there.

Good luck!

thiagogdf · #8 11th December 2005, 12:55 AM

I also use red carpet and today when i needed update 60 linux boxes I thought :"what can I do now?"
and on the path at /var/cache/rcd/ I copied all directory to another linux box and executed the red carpet on that machine and the update worked as well.

but now , how can I do a local distribution SERVER with red carpet?
regards,