I read several articles on the internet about creating local YUM repositories from the DVD for installation over the LAN.

All articles mention copying the FC6 DVD RPMS.

I created a folder on my HDD
/repo/base/RPMS

the /repo is accecible from apache.

and copied all the RPMS from /media/FC_6 x86_64 DVD/Fedora/RPMS into this directory and did the createrepo /repo/base

now I have two folders

/repo/base/RPMS
/repo/base/repodata

After editing the fedora-core.repo
and running the add/remove software, I see the message

Cannot open/read repomd.xml file for repository: base

Did I copy the DVD correct? Where have I gone wrong?

It is a better idea to create a new Local-Media.repo (example name) file in the /etc/yum.repos.d directory, sample below;

[local]
name=Local-Media
baseurl=file:///repo/base
gpgcheck=0
enabled=1

I would also like to allow the repo to be operated by other computers over lan.

I guess there is a way to mount remote file systems and use it as a local media. But I thought that the httpd option would be better.

I however manaed to get it working by replicating the directory structure of the internet based repos and copying the DVD into it. Also, when I tried to run createrepo, the resultane repodata did not support grouping of the packages in the "Add Remove Software". So I had to use the DVD repodata as it was and it worked.

PS - I copied the entire DVD and *not* only the Fedora or RPMS directory