Creating a yum repository under Debian

Creating a `yum` repository under Debian
	Part XII. (Re)packaging

Creating a `yum` repository under Debian

Jurjen Bokma

July 2007

We have a server running Debian, but we want to serve packages to machines running Scientific Linux (a RedHat clone). We try to set up a yum repository.

Procedure 72. Setting up the repository

Creating and populating the repository is fairly simple: create any directory - /srv/ftp/myrepos for out purposes, and copy the rpm-files into it.
Now we need two packages installed: apt-get install yum createrepo
Indexing the repository for the client can be done in two ways:
1. createrepo /srv/ftp/myrepos for use with newer versions of yum
2. cd /srv/ftp/myrepos && yum-arch . for use with older versions

Now we can configure the client to use our repository by putting the following stanza into /etc/yum.conf:

[My Repository]
name=myrepos
baseurl=ftp://myhost.mynet.com/myrepos/

Usage of yum (and other package managers) is nicely described in the Naked Ape's PackageManagerCheatSheet.

Warning

	Warning
There is a catch though: some rpm files will not be accepted by `yum-arch`, either with a message `error public key not available` or simply with `ignoring bad rpm: <filename>`. `createrepo` will not complain, but whether it is passing or just silently ignoring I did not test.

There is a catch though: some rpm files will not be accepted by yum-arch, either with a message error public key not available or simply with ignoring bad rpm: <filename>.

createrepo will not complain, but whether it is passing or just silently ignoring I did not test.

Nice repositories to steal from are Dries's and Dag's.