[Yum] Re: Using a fast internet connexion to update a computer with a slow one

Enrique Perez-Terron enrio at online.no
Fri Aug 6 00:52:36 UTC 2004


On Fri, 2004-08-06 at 00:07, Jack Tanner wrote:
> Enrique Perez-Terron wrote:
> > He apparently has 
> >  1) a home computer with a very slow internet access
> >  2) a workplace computer with a good internet access, but possibly not  
> >     even running any *nix os.
> > 
> > As I understood it, he wants to use Yum on the home computer to find out
> > what exactly to download, download it on the workplace computer, place
> > the rpms on a CD, and install the rpms when he gets home. Yum is not
> > needed in the last step, but I think it is nice to keep the rpms in
> > yum's cache just in case something.
> > 
> > Anyone, correct me please, if I misunderstood something.
> 
> Now, could you take this a step further? My home computer has NO 
> internet connection. Everything else is the same as above.

That is quite a bit harder, because to figure out what should be updated
when running yum update, yum must know both 
 1) what is installed in home computer
 2) what is available in the repositories
This means that it does not make sense to run yum on your disconnected
computer, since (2) is not available there, and it does not help to run
yum on the connected computer, as (1) is not available.

The solution would be to find a way to break one or both of the
assumptions above.

Besides, running yum on the connected machine requires that it can run
python. Hm, you might have to install cygwin...? Then there must be an
rpm database on the connected machine, and to satisfy (1) above, it
would have to be a replica of the rpm database of the disconnected
computer. You might have to engage in two database synchronization over
sneakernet projects, synchronizing the connected machine's rpm db with
the disconnected one's, and the other way with the yum cache.

Notice that the yum.conf file can contain a specification of the rpm
database to use. If your connected computer runs an rpm-based linux
distro, you need to specify a separate rpm database and a separate yum
cache. Man yum.conf, /cachedir, /cachedb, /usecachedb.

Another and perhaps just as easy thing to do is to have the connected
machine download everything, and transfer that to the disconnected
machine. Then you could maintain a mirror of the repo on both machines,
and specify the local mirror in yum's config for the disconnected
machine.

But to maintain the mirrors there are other tools that are more suited,
I think. man wget, to maintain the connected computer's repos; man tar,
man find (-mtime, -newer) for the sneakernet part.

Good luck.
-Enrique




More information about the Yum mailing list