I've just installed Mandriva 2007 today and now I am stumped. For whatever reason, in order for the RPM drake and its console counterpart urpmi to work, I have to allow a bizzare firewall rule (allowing our server access to the outside world, which it normally does not need). From some troubleshooting, my husband and I think that it may be an issue with blocked ports.

What ports, if any, does urpmi use and can they be configured?

The problem is that without opening up that rule for whatever reason, the program refuses to download any of the synthesis files and freezes on checking the first one (Install DVD). I can't even begin to guess why (newbie here).

With the rule unblocked, no problems. Please understand that inherently, we have a firewall rule to let our computers out into the world and to forward whatever comes our way based on ports to the computers inside the network. Or something like that... And even though URPMI fails horribly, we both still have internet connectivity, and for me, bit torrent ran fine with its port forwarding.

Anyway, Mandriva 2007 running on a Pentium 4 Intel processor.

Also, if the server has a samba share that does not require username or password, how does one mount it as read and write?

Is there a way to create a folder on my hard drive and tell urpmi to look there for updates?

The idea here is that some RPMs I end up downloading manually and would like them to appear in the RPM manager if possible, but I don't see a way of doing that. Any help would be appreciated.

PS: I do know that most RPMs can be installed just by double clicking or through command line.

I think this is doable, though I've never done it myself. Start Mandriva Control Center then go to Software Management > Select from where software packages... This will pull up the Media Manager, which you can then click 'Add custom' and define local file path.

Tried that and I get some funky thing that says "Copying failed. Could not copy..."