yum downloadonly

[Timothy Murphy]

Kam Leo wrote:

>> I asked a while ago if there was any way
>> of only downloading a package once
>> and then installing it on several machine,
>> and I was advised that the yum-downloadonly plugin
>> would serve this purpose.

> You do not need the yum-downloadonly plugin. Edit /etc/yum.conf and
> change "keepcache=0" to "keepcache=1". All the rpms that yum downloads
> will remain in the /var/cache/yum directories (separate directory for
> each repo) until you dispose of them (yum clean packages, rm xxx, mv
> yyy, etc.).
> 
> If you want other machines on your network to be able to use those
> downloaded rpm files copy or move them to another directory, e.g. your
> localrepo directory.

Thanks very much to you and the other responders.
Having read all the suggestions, what I'm proposing is:

0. Set keepcache=1 in /etc/yum.conf on each machine .

1. Soft-link /var/cache/yum on each machine to /common/yum ,
where /common is NFS-shared by all my computers.

2. Now on each machine run - perhaps daily -
        yum localupdate /common/yum/*.rpm
        yum update

3. Every week run "yum clean cache" on the machine carrying /common .

I'd be interested to know what the experts think of this proposal.


-- 
Timothy Murphy  
e-mail (<80k only): tim /at/ birdsnest.maths.tcd.ie
tel: +353-86-2336090, +353-1-2842366
s-mail: School of Mathematics, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland