Yum in Fedora Core 3

Yum, short for Yellow Dog Updater, Modified, is a package manager for RPM-compatible Linux systems.Yum is the standard tool for updating Fedora Core, and up2date can use yum repositories to update software. Its main advantages over the RPM version of apt are its smaller codebase and better dependency handling.

To begin using Yum to its full potential with a clean install of FC3, we must first import the Fedora GNU Privacy Guard (GPG) key. For additional security, all software packages distributed as part of the The Fedora Project are signed with the fedora@redhat.com public key. If we attempt a yum update at this point, we’ll see the following:

[root@beta ~]$ yum update
Password:
You have enabled checking of packages via GPG keys. This is a good thing.
However, you do not have any GPG public keys installed. You need to download
the keys for packages you wish to install and install them.
You can do that by running the command:
    rpm --import public.gpg.key
For more information contact your distribution or package provider.

The Fedora GPG key has been installed on your system during the initial installation, so importing the key is a simple process:

[root@beta ~]$ rpm --import /usr/share/rhn/RPM-GPG-KEY-fedora

Now the yum update command will complete successfully.

To fully utilize the potential of yum, we need to know how to add third-party repositories that may offer customized packages not available directly from the Fedora Project. In FC3, the default configuration ([main] section) is located in /etc/yum.conf, and all repository information is stored in /etc/yum.repos.d/ as .repo files. By default, yum uses the following mirrors:

[root@beta ~]$ cat /etc/yum.repos.d/fedora.repo
[base]
name=Fedora Core $releasever - $basearch - Base
#baseurl=http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux/core/$releasever/$basearch/os/
mirrorlist=http://fedora.redhat.com/download/mirrors/fedora-core-$releasever
enabled=1
gpgcheck=1
[root@beta ~]$ cat /etc/yum.repos.d/fedora-updates.repo
[updates-released]
name=Fedora Core $releasever - $basearch - Released Updates
#baseurl=http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux/core/updates/$releasever/$basearch/
mirrorlist=http://fedora.redhat.com/download/mirrors/updates-released-fc$releasever
enabled=1
gpgcheck=1

These configuration files can (and should!) be modified to contain geographically local Fedora Project mirrors. Take a look at the mirrors for base packages and updates and select the fastest and/or closest mirrors. Place these URLs into text files on your computer like so (note: these are my ideal mirrors, yours will be different):

[root@beta ~]$ cat /etc/yum.repos.d/local-base
# My local FC mirrors

http://ftp.ndlug.nd.edu/pub/fedora/linux/core/3/$ARCH/os/

http://fedora.gtlib.cc.gatech.edu/pub/fedora.redhat/linux/core/3/$ARCH/os

http://ftp.ussg.iu.edu/linux/fedora/linux/core/3/$ARCH/os/

[root@beta ~]$ cat /etc/yum.repos.d/local-updates
# My local FC update mirrors

http://ftp.ndlug.nd.edu/pub/fedora/linux/core/updates/3/$ARCH/

http://fedora.gtlib.cc.gatech.edu/pub/fedora.redhat/linux/core/updates/3/$ARCH/

http://ftp.ussg.iu.edu/linux/fedora/linux/core/updates/3/$ARCH/

Now we need to update the default fedora.repo and fedora-updates.repo to point to your custom mirror list, like so:

[root@beta ~]$ cat /etc/yum.repos.d/fedora.repo
[base]
name=Fedora Core $releasever - $basearch - Base
#baseurl=http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux/core/$releasever/$basearch/os/
#mirrorlist=http://fedora.redhat.com/download/mirrors/fedora-core-$releasever
mirrorlist=file:///etc/yum.repos.d/local-base
enabled=1
gpgcheck=1
[root@beta ~]$ cat /etc/yum.repos.d/fedora-updates.repo
[updates-released]
name=Fedora Core $releasever - $basearch - Released Updates
#baseurl=http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux/core/updates/$releasever/$basearch/
#mirrorlist=http://fedora.redhat.com/download/mirrors/updates-released-fc$releasever
mirrorlist=file:///etc/yum.repos.d/local-updates
enabled=1
gpgcheck=1

Your machine will now use your local mirrors instead of the default mirror list.

Where yum really shines in the ease with which you can incorporate third-party repositories. Adding a new repository is as simple as adding new .repo files. Here are configuraton files for a few common repositories.

Fedora Development:

[root@beta ~]$ cat /etc/yum.repos.d/fedora-devel.repo
[development]
name=Fedora Core $releasever - Development Tree
#baseurl=http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux/core/development/$basearch/
mirrorlist=http://fedora.redhat.com/download/mirrors/fedora-core-rawhide
enabled=1
gpgcheck=1

FreshRPMs.net:

[root@beta ~]$ cat /etc/yum.repos.d/freshrpms.repo
[core]
name=FreshRPMS-Core
baseurl=http://ayo.freshrpms.net/fedora/linux/$releasever/$basearch/core
enabled=1
#gpgcheck=1
#[extras]
#name=Fedora Linux $releasever - $basearch - extras
#baseurl=http://ayo.freshrpms.net/fedora/linux/$releasever/$basearch/extras
#enabled=0
#gpgcheck=1
#[alternatives]
#name=Fedora Linux $releasever - $basearch - alternatives
#baseurl=http://ayo.freshrpms.net/fedora/linux/$releasever/$basearch/alternatives
#enabled=0
#gpgcheck=1
[updates]
name=FreshRPMS-Updates
baseurl=http://ayo.freshrpms.net/fedora/linux/$releasever/$basearch/updates
enabled=1
#gpgcheck=1
[freshrpms]
name=FreshRPMS-Fresh
baseurl=http://ayo.freshrpms.net/fedora/linux/$releasever/$basearch/freshrpms
enabled=1
#gpgcheck=1

Livna.org:

[root@beta ~]$ cat /etc/yum.repos.d/livna.repo
[livna]
name=Livna Stable
baseurl=http://rpm.livna.org/fedora/$releasever/$basearch/RPMS.stable/
enabled=1
#gpgcheck=1

Dag:

[root@beta ~]$ cat /etc/yum.repos.d/dag.repo
[dag]
name=Dag
baseurl=http://apt.sw.be/fedora/$releasever/en/$basearch/dag/
enabled=1
#gpgcheck=1