How to configure YUM Server in RHEL6

In this tutorial we will configure yum server in RHEL6 with local repository. YUM is a software package manager used for RPM management. YUM make it easier to install, update and remove RPM.

YUM stand for Yellowdog updater modified
YUM is based on YUP which stand for Yellowdog Updater
YUM is developed to maintain an RPM-based system
By default YUM server use online repository
YUM can be configure to look for a RPM in multiple location
Repository may contain multiple versions of the same RPM package
Repository may contain different builds for different architectures for example one for i686 and other for x86_64
Internet access is not available during the RHCE 6 exam
YUM server allow you to create local repository
During the exam you could have a connection to local repository
Use YUM to install and remove RPM wherever possible during the exam
YUM automatically resolve software dependencies
YUM can automatically search for appropriate version of RPM
YUM can automatically detect appropriate architectures
Above three features of YUM can save a lot of time during the exam

In this tutorial I will use two systems Server and linuxclient from our LAB environment. I will configure YUM Server on Server system and yum client on linuxclient system. If you want to check the network topology used in this article please check following article. Lab set up for RHCE 6 practice.

Configure YUM Server in RHEL 6

During this process we will copy the entire DVD of RHEL 6, so make sure that you have sufficient space on root directory

Insert RHEL 6 DVD and mount it in media folder

RHCE 6 exam cover Anonymous only download for FTP server so in this tutorial we will store repository on a local FTP server, you can choose any other directory like /opt as per your need.

For this article I assume that you have configured FTP server. You can check our previous article for FTP server.

Check vsftpd RPM and service. (Skip if you want to use other directory)

Make directories yum/rhel6/repodata in the folder which you have chosen for repository.

For FTP server it would be /var/ftp/pub folder

Copy all RPM from RHEL 6 DVD located in Packages folder to /var/ftp/pub/yum/rhel6/repodata

Copy main xml file to our repodata folder. (Required for group installation)

Three RPM are required for YUM Server.

deltarpm
python-deltarpm
createrepo

We have copied All RPM from DVD to repodata directory. Now we can install RPM directly from repodata folder.Change directory torepodata

Install any missing RPM.

Verify that we have all necessary RPM

Change directory to /var/ftp/pub/yum/rhel6

Generate local repository files from repodata folder [ repodata folder :- which contain all RPM copied from RHEL6 DVD] to current folder [rhel6]

Create new server.repo file

To point local repository set following values and save the file

During its normal use yum creates a cache of metadata and packages. This cache can take up a lot of space. yum clean all command allows you to clean up these files.

yum makecache is used to download and make usable all the metadata for the currently enabled yum repository.

yum list all will list all packages from all the repositories configured. With this it will also list all the packages installed on your system

yum grouplist will list all package groups from all the repositories configured

Test Yum server by installing squid [RPM required for squid proxy server]

We have successfully configured YUM server with local repository. But client system will not be able to access this repository yet. We need to configure FTP server for anonymous download. We have already configured FTP server in our previous article so in this article we are going to include only those steps which required for YUM setup. Check our previous article for detailed explanations of FTP server.

Open main configuration file of FTP server