Make Your Own RHN Up2date Repository Guide

After up2date was running, we simply connected to a couple of up2date servers and gathered the RPMs we were interested in using. We skipped out on updating the additional language packages and other updates for programs because none of us ever use these on the test machines. After several hours on our ADSL line, the updates were downloaded. Opening /var/www/html/fedora/fedora/3/i386/ in Nautilus revealed all of the RPMs were successfully downloaded.

Next, we created the headers for the up2date repository by cd /var/www/html/fedora/fedora/3/i386/ and then yum-arch . (the period is required after yum-arch). This command, yum-arch, creates a yum distribution database that is used by up2date. A header.info and all of the *.hdr files are automatically generated and placed inside /var/www/html/fedora/fedora/3/i386/headers/. After doing all of these steps, you should be set for adjustments that need to be made server side. Follow on in this guide to have the client machines use this up2date repository we just constructed.

For the client side configuration, we opened /etc/sysconfig/rhn/sources and changed http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux/core/updates/3/$ARCH/ to http://192.168.0.101/fedora/fedora/3/i386, with 192.168.0.101 being the local static IP address of the up2date server. Any other configurations you want can also be changed from up2date-config. After doing so, you can simply start up2date from the Red Hat Network Alert Notification Tool and then it should connect to the local up2date repository and all you to download any updates you wish off the server you just created.

Overall, this is a relatively easy process for establishing your own up2date server for use with Fedora. After creating our own up2date repository we were able to download these package updates at roughly 6800KB/s, compared to 3-37KB/s from downloading them off repositories on the Internet. Keep in mind, the up2date repository you created needs to connect to other repositories on a regular basis in order to retrieve the latest updates. Remember after you update the server to enter yum-arch . in order to re-generate the headers. The setup of a LAN up2date repository is significantly faster than having multiple computers connect to the Internet and download the updates. If yum (Yellow dog Updater, Modified) or APT is your preferred choice for gathering updates over up2date, the ideas from this guide can still apply. In addition, we covered the absolute basics in this guide, supporting multiple architectures, custom RPMs, source RPMs, and many other additional options are available for your up2date repository.