I've got to believe this is a common problem, but can't seem to find a solution. We have some 600 server VM's (all running CentOS 6.x) in a private network that we need to administer, none of which have internet access, nor can have, so using yum is out. Occasionally we need to add packages to these machines that lead to dependency hell. Try to install this-new-thing.x86_64.rpm but you can't because it needs a dependency that's not there, so you find the dependency but it needs more dependencies, and so on down a deep rabbit hole.

I figure there's got to be something out there that let's me try to install an rpm in a local machine with internet access without actually installing it on the host machine, pulls the dependency tree for that rpm and all it's dependency rpms into a package or sandboxed file/dir so I can collect everything, maybe even make it into one big rpm? and move the finished product up to our server environment where I can then install without dependency snags.

If there's nothing like that out there, how do other admin's get around a problem like this?

regards, Richard

Set up a local mirror of the yum repos. Only allow this machine Internet access (or just use the DVD/ISO images and forgo Internet entirely). Point the VMs (they DO have inTRAnet access, right?) at this yum repo.

Here you go.

Brilliant, I'm embarrassed I never thought of it. I'm off to set up a local repo. Thanks for the help folks.

regards, Richard

Hey, no worries. Part of our learning process