yum and redhat 8.0

Sat May 8 10:59:50 UTC 2004

Hi,

I notice that there are no docs for yum and redhat 8.0. It is possible I 
may have missed them but I am looking at 
http://www.fedoralegacy.org/docs/ in particular. I have copied and 
pasted from the redhat 7.x instructions and changed things where 
necessary. Please take a look and see what needs to be fixed before it 
can be put up. I have omitted documention on how to use yum 1.x with 
redhat 8.0 as I don't recommend it. Please add it if you think it is 
important.

Kind regards,
Raphael

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  Using yum to keep Red Hat Linux 8.0 up to date

/yum/ (*Y*ell dog *U*pdater, *M*odified) is an automated package 
management program which may be used to install, remove, and update 
packages on an RPM based system. It will help you to keep your system up 
to date and is used by Fedora Core, the successor to Red Hat Linux.

      Step 1: Preliminaries

Linux prevents ordinary users from installing, removing, or modifying 
system software, libraries, and important configuration information. So 
you must have root access to proceed. You may either login as the root 
user, or use the /su/ (or /sudo/) commands to become the root user on 
the machine.

*Note:* Be careful when running as root! Be sure to logout of the root 
account as soon as you are done. Running as root is dangerous, and 
should only be used when needed. Typos or mistakes can destroy your 
system or your data, so it is important that you be careful when running 
as root.

When you are running as root, your prompt will be changed to the *#* 
character. In the command examples below, we include this prompt, 
however you should not type the *#* character when entering a command

Step 1: Updating yum and rpm

The one complication with configuring yum to work with red hat 8.0 is 
that you have to have the correct yum version to go with your rpm 
version. The official chart can be found at 
http://linux.duke.edu/projects/yum/download.ptml. However, for our 
purposes we simply recommend updating both to the latest reasonably bug 
free versions.

rpm -Uvh 
http://ftp.freshrpms.net/pub/freshrpms/redhat/8.0/yum/yum-2.0.3-5.rh.fr.i386.rpm

rpm -Uvh 
http://download.fedora.us/patches/redhat/8.0/i386/RPMS.stable/rpm-4.1.1-1.8x.i386.rpm

Step 2: Configuring yum.conf

Yum uses a file called yum.conf that can be found in the /etc/ directory 
to decide where to download updates from. This file needs to be 
configured to work with fedora legacy. The simplest method is to create 
such a file containing the following:

# See the yum.conf(5) man page for information the syntax of this file,
# including failover setup.

[main]
cachedir=/var/cache/yum
debuglevel=2
logfile=/var/log/yum.log
pkgpolicy=newest

# Please use nearby mirrors! For a an up to date list of Fedora Legacy 
mirrors, see
# http://www.fedoralegacy.org/download/fedoralegacy-mirrors.php

[redhat-os]
name=Red Hat Linux $releasever ($basearch)
baseurl=
http://download.fedora.us/fedora/redhat/$releasever/$basearch/yum/os/
gpgcheck=1
failovermethod=priority

[redhat-updates]
name=Red Hat Linux $releasever ($basearch) updates
baseurl=
http://download.fedora.us/fedora/redhat/$releasever/$basearch/yum/updates/
gpgcheck=1
failovermethod=priority

[fedora-stable]
name=Fedora Linux / stable for Red Hat Linux $releasever ($basearch)
baseurl=
http://download.fedora.us/fedora/redhat/$releasever/$basearch/yum/stable/
gpgcheck=1
failovermethod=priority

Step 2.1: Optionally add mirror sites

yum will be installed so as to use download.fedora.us as the source of 
updates. You may want to configure it to use additional mirror sites 
which are closer to you, faster, or meet your security policy. yum 
supports automatic fail-over when one or more servers are unavailable, 
so it is advantageous to use multiple mirror sites to take advantage of 
this fail-over support. yum will use the sites in the order presented in 
the /baseurl/ parameters of your configuration file, so you should order 
them so that the most desirable sites will be tried first before your 
fail-over mirrors.

Again, please note that this step is optional, and it is up to you to 
decide if you wish to implement it.

You can find a list of current Fedora Legacy mirrors at 
http://www.fedoralegacy.org/download/fedoralegacy-mirrors.php

You will need to manually edit the file /etc/yum.conf to set the mirror 
site(s) should you chose to do so.

      Step 2.2: Add the GPG (security) keys

All Fedora Legacy packages are signed with GPG keys. All packages should 
be verified using these keys. See 
http://www.fedoralegacy.org/about/security.php for more information.

In order properly to verify the packages, you need to add the 
appropriate GPG keys to your root user's keyring. To import the keys, 
use the following command as the root user:

rpm --import http://www.fedoralegacy.org/FEDORA-LEGACY-GPG-KEY

      Step 3: Update your system

Once you have installed the yum package, you should run the following 
command as the root user on your system to update your system:

# yum update

This will create a current package list for your system, download the 
updates for all packages which require updating (and any dependencies 
for those packages), and install them on your system.

Before you do that you may wish to run

# yum check-update
which will show you all the packages yum thinks need to be updated

*Warning:* This may take some time on your first use of yum, depending 
on how up to date your system is and the speed of your internet 
connection! Yum is not known for its speed but once you have completed 
the first update the subsequent ones will be much faster.

      Step 4: Decide if you want automatic updates

yum has the ability to automatically apply (download/verify/install) all 
updates to your system, but this feature is disabled by default. If you 
want to enable that functionality, please enter the following command as 
the root user on your system:

    # chkconfig yum on
    # service yum start

After that, yum will update your system through the cron job 
/etc/cron.daily/yum.cron, which will run every night (or later through 
anacron, if your system isn't running all the time).

      Step 5: Subscribe to fedora-legacy-announce

You may subscribe to the fedora-legacy-announce 
<http://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-legacy-announce/> mailing 
list to be informed by e-mail when new updates become available. This 
step is optional, but highly recommended.

      Step 6: Please help us with our service!

The Fedora Legacy project is always in the need of helping hands. Please 
check the Participate <http://fedoralegacy.org/participate/> section of 
our website to see what you can do to help us. As we're a community 
project, our success will heavily depend on helping hands – possibly you!

If you find a problem with an update published by The Fedora Legacy 
Project, or in The Fedora Legacy Project documentation, please let us know!

      Step 7: Optionally learn additional features of yum

Below is a summary of some of the more advanced features of yum for 
those who wish to know more. You do not need to know these commands to 
keep your system updated; they are simply provided for those who want to 
learn more about using yum to its fullest.

yum list
    List all available software.
yum check-update
    See if there are updated packages available.
yum update
    Update all installed packages that have a newer version available.
yum install /<packagename>/
    Install specific package(s) (and its dependencies, if missing any).
yum search /<word>/
    Search all known packages entries (descriptions etc) for /<word>/.
yum info /<packagename>/
    Show basic information about a package.