[Yum] A few simple questions

[Troy Dawson]

Hi Jason,
I think there are several ways to do what you want.  So while others have 
their ways, this is what we do at Fermilab.  Those parts I don't have any 
comments on ... I'll just skip.

Jason L Tibbitts III wrote:
> 
> What's the best way to maintain a set of "default packages" that can
> change over time?  Occasionally I need to add a package to the default
> set, and when I do this I need all of the machines on the network to
> install it automatically.  I know I can set up yumgroups.xml and do a
> "yum groupinstall blah", but that just installs what's in that group
> at that time.  If I add a package to the group I don't think the
> regular nightly update will grab it.
> 
> So far I see two options: modify /etc/cron.daily/yum to do the
> groupinstall every night, or make a package that has nothing but
> dependencies and install it.  Then when I add a package I can update
> this RPM and the nightly update will take care of everything during
> dependency resolution.  Is there a simpler way?
> 

We modify the /etc/cron.daily/yum.  We have put in a section, so that if any 
rpm ever get's put in a certain directory it get's installed on the machines. 
  There is our emergency repository.  We've only had to use it once in 3 or 4 
years, but it sure covers your rear when you need it.
We also have what we call 'workgroup repositories'.  So that a certain 
workgroup maintainer can put in an rpm, and it goes out that night to all 
machines that are part of that workgroup.
Here's our yum line (there is other code that builds the yum.conf and finds 
out what workgroup a machine is part of.)

/usr/bin/yum -c $TEMPCONFIGFILE -e 0 -d 1 -y install '*'

as Seth said, it looks ugly, but it works well.  Except for the one other 
thing that Seth said, dependancies.  We sometimes have workgroup maintainers 
stick stuff in their repository that has dependancies they hadn't thought of. 
  But ... it's their users that get to yell at them :)

-- 
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Troy Dawson  dawson at fnal.gov  (630)840-6468
Fermilab  ComputingDivision/CSS  CSI Group
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