using up2date with local repository
 

I'm trying to set up up2date on RHEL 4 to go to a local yum repository rather than to the redhat network. I changed the sources file, but when I run up2date -u it insists on trying to connect to the redhat network. Is there a way around this? This server is in a DMZ and can't access the internet, so RHN is out of the question. I've seen a couple of other threads about this but they all seem to say "just use yum instead". I'm so confused about how to set up yum that I don't want to go there at this point.

You have to point it to the local filesystem and a yum repository isn't going to work, up2date is not yum.

man up2date for all available options and get ready for really crappy documentation, it's not a very good tool which is probably why they switched to using yum in 5.x and later. There are tutorials out there on how to switch RHEL 4 to use Yum, a quick search will probably find them.