I have a RHEL 6.7 server setup as a reposync server pulling down updates from RedHat making local repositories. Mainly for repos such as rhel-6-server-rpms, rhel-6-server-eus-epms, rhel-6-server-optional-rpms and so on. I use these local repos to test to make sure all looks good then continue on to patch/update my remaining RHEL clients I have. Life is good...

But when it comes around to patching the reposync server itself, how do I gracefully change the configuration to use the local repos for a “yum update –y” and not the repos setup for downloading the rpms from Redhat? I want to use the same local repos as I do for the other RHEL clients so everyone is patched the same. Besides the obvious proxy issues, do I use “yum-config-manager” to disable the repos then add my local repos info in a repo file in /etc/yum.repos.d/?

The basic question how do I properly toggle my RHEL download or reposync server between patching with local repositories vs downloading or reposyncing new rpms from Redhat?

you could have your alternate in /etc/yum.repos.d you disable it in by default. then when you are ready to patch you use yum --disablerepo=* --enablerepo=some_repo_you_want_to_use

some variation of that should work for you

I believe I have seen others copy/move the .repo files out of /etc/yum.repo.d to say /home/user/repos that way yum will pick up on the files listed here.

I think the disablerepo with yum would make sense and would normally work but unfortunately the repo names from the download (found in “/etc/yum.repos.d/redhat.repo”) is the same as in the local repo. So the disablereop option might be confused as to which repo to run against – the download repo from redhat or the local repo (maybe?). What I did do today which seems to work is...

In my “/etc/yum.repo.d” directory I have redhat.repo and a 2nd repo file with our local repo information. First I did a “yum clean all” to clear cache, then a “sed” against “/etc/yum.repos.d/redhat.repo” to change all occurrences of “enabled = 1” to “enabled = 0”. Then my “yum update –y” to patch.

I wonder if the yum with the disablerepo option will do basically do the same as my sed command – I’ll try that tomorrow and let you know.

Thanks for the suggestions --

Here’s what I did that I think works for me..

1) I used subscription-manager to disable the repos used for the download of updates. Example would be “subscription-manager repos --disable=rhel-server-dts2-6-rpms”. Do this for each Redhat repo you have enabled for download.
2) Now add/update /etc/yum.repos.d/<your-local-repos>.repo with your local repo information to be used for patching (or at least make sure it is in place).
3) Do your patching with a “yum update –y”.
4) Now enable your repos again for download -- “subscription-manager repos --enable=rhel-server-dts2-6-rpms”. Do this for each Redhat repo you have want to download.

That should do it. Thanks to all for their help and suggestions --

1 members found this post helpful.