How To Set Up Your Own RPM Repository (repo)

Even if you have more than one system, the benefits of having your own local mirror of RPMs are substantial: faster updates, better synchronization of system packages, etc. It’s also pretty easy to do.

1. Install createrepo via yum: yum -y install createrepo
   1. You might as well install “repoview”, too:
   2. yum -y install repoview
2. Install rsync via yum if you don’t have it installed already: yum -y install rsync
3. Pick a file system and directory to contain your copy of the repository. Remember, this repository will only grow over time, so take that in to consideration. You don’t want to pick a volume that will cripple your entire system if it fills up. In this example, let’s use /export/repos, and create the following directories:
   1. /export/repos/6/x86_64
   2. /export/repos/6/i386
4. Edit /etc/exports to contain:
   • /export/repos *(ro,sync)
5. Start the NFS server process:
   • /etc/init.d/nfs start
   • chkconfig –level 345 nfs on
6. Mount the file system on all of your hosts. I personally use automounter, but it is not required:
   • mount myserver:/export/repos /home/repos
7. Put together a small script (I have a sample one attached to this post) which will rsync the repository from a known good mirror source to the directory you created in step 3. (rsync_repos.pl)
   • #!/bin/sh
     # rsync (mirror) the latest updates locally.
     # Rich West
     #CREATEREPO=0RSYNC_OPTIONS=” \
     –verbose –progress –stats \
     –delete \
     –archive \
     –exclude debug \
     –exclude repodata”if [ “$1” != “-d” ] || [ “X$2” = “X” ]; then
     echo “Usage: $0 -d <32bit | 64bit | all> [-r]”
     echo
     exit;
     fi
     MIRROR1=/export/repos/6/i386/updates
     MIRROR2=/export/repos/6/x86_64/updates
     RSYNC_HOST=distro.ibiblio.org::distros/fedora/linux/core/updates/6
     rm -rf $MIRROR1/.olddata $MIRROR2/.olddata
     OUTFILE=/tmp/rsync.output

     if [ “$2” = “32bit” ] || [ “$2” = “all” ]; then
     ##
     # Sync up the ‘updates’ tree for the 32bit distribution.
     ##
     /bin/nice /usr/bin/rsync $RSYNC_OPTIONS \
     $RSYNC_HOST/i386/ $MIRROR1 \
     >> $OUTFILE
     ##
     # Build the repo data
     ##
     if [ “$CREATEREPO” = “1” ]; then
     /usr/bin/createrepo -q $MIRROR1
     cd $MIRROR1
     /usr/bin/repoview -q .
     cd /
     fi
     fi

     if [ “$2” = “64bit” ] || [ “$2” = “all” ]; then
     ##
     # Sync up the ‘updates’ tree for the 64 bit distribution
     ##
     /bin/nice /usr/bin/rsync $RSYNC_OPTIONS \
     $RSYNC_HOST/x86_64/ $MIRROR2 \
     >> $OUTFILE
     ##
     # Build the repo data
     ##
     if [ “$CREATEREPO” = “1” ]; then
     /usr/bin/createrepo -q $MIRROR2
     cd $MIRROR2
     /usr/bin/repoview -q .
     cd /
     fi
     fi

8. Update your yum repo files to point to your local copy of the repository and disable the external ones:
   1. • Create /etc/yum.repos.d/my.repo:
        • [My-updates]
          name=My Repo Mirror – $releasever – $basearch
          baseurl=file:///home/repos/$releasever/$basearch/updates/
          enabled=1
          gpgcheck=0
      • Disable the Fedora “updates” repo /etc/yum.repos.d/fedora-updates.repo:
        • Change all of the entries to contain “enabled=0”
9. Create a cronjob to sync your repo and the known-good repo mirror nightly:
   • crontab -e
   • 00 04 * * * /home/root/bin/rsync_repos.pl -d all -r

In my case, I figured the one to keep sync’ed was the one that changed the most: the updates repository. However, your mileage may vary, and you can apply the above to sync’ing just about any repository. I also chose one that used ‘rsync’ versus having to script a bit “wget” or another web mirroring tool.