I'm trying to come up with a good way to build a RHEL 3 server that only includes the packages I'm interested in. The problem is that even the packages I don't choose to install get copied into the rpm database stored on the server, so when I connect to RHN and update the system, everything gets updated (and in many cases installed).

I realize I can go in and "uncheck" packages that I don't care about when I register the server, but that's an ugly cludge -- not only is it incredibly likely that I'll miss something (and all of its resultant supporting rpms will get added back in), but there are packages in there that aren't listed on the comps.xml file on the first RHEL install CD.

Is there a good (easy? foolproof?) way to:
1. only install the packages I want to install, and not include the rest anywhere on the server
2. Ensure that I'm only notifying RHN about the packages I care about (base install, plus whatever else I actively installed)
3. Only download from RHN the packages that are actually installed on my server

Any help would be appreciated.

FYI, my install is X Windows, Gnome, FTP server, admin tools, web browser, and some development tools. I don't want Samba, Apache, BIND, sendmail... but they seem to get installed (and set to on!) when I use RHN.

Thanks,
matt

The software you've listed matches the "Workstation" installation type, so try installing with that and adding anything extra afterward.

Be aware that every Linux system must have an active mail service, and Anaconda automatically installs sendmail for this. The reason is that all messages to the administrator are sent by e-mail (to get these mails: edit /etc/aliases, changing the root:root line to root:me@mydomain.com, save changes, and run 'newaliases' as root).

The only other thing I can think is that there is a saved profile for this system on RHN, so when you connect it imposes that package profile. You can delete profiles and re-register systems on RHN at will - you just can't have more registered systems than your entitlements allow.