I think it makes sense to set up a local mirror/repository for CentOS packages, at least for our workstations. I’m following the directions here, which seem to be quite clear: http://wiki.centos.org/HowTos/CreateLocalMirror.
We can later investigate the option of doing a network install, like http://wiki.centos.org/TipsAndTricks/VncHeadlessInstall. More at http://wiki.centos.org/TipsAndTricks.
First, we need some space. We’re not using Puma’s disks, and this seems like a good use of that non-backed-up space, so I’m going to delete the files in /students-puma, unmount that (modifying fstab) and create a /share volume that will be exported on-campus:
[root@puma ~] umount /students-puma/ [root@puma ~] emacs -nw /etc/fstab [root@puma ~] mount /dev/mapper/vg0-lvstud /share [root@puma ~] mkdir -p /share/CentOS/6.3 [root@puma ~] cd /share/CentOS/ [root@puma CentOS] ln -s 6.3 6 [root@puma CentOS] emacs -nw /etc/exports [root@puma CentOS] grep share /etc/exports /share 149.130.0.0/16(ro) [root@puma CentOS] service nfs restart
I set up the desired directory structure. I think only the first three are necessary for our purposes, and frankly, I don’t know what the others are, but it can’t hurt, to have them, I think.
[root@puma CentOS] mkdir -p 6.3/isos/i386 [root@puma CentOS] mkdir -p 6.3/os/i386 [root@puma CentOS] mkdir -p 6.3/updates/i386 [root@puma CentOS] mkdir -p 6.3/extras/i386 [root@puma CentOS] mkdir -p 6.3/fastrack/i386 [root@puma CentOS] mkdir -p 6.3/cr/i386 [root@puma CentOS] mkdir -p 6.3/contrib/i386 [root@puma CentOS] mkdir -p 6.3/centosplus/i386 [root@puma CentOS] mkdir -p 6.3/addons/i386
I copied the .iso files to the isos/i386 directory and then did:
[root@puma CentOS] mkdir /tmp/mnt [root@puma CentOS] mount -ro loop /share/CentOS/6.3/isos/i386/CentOS-6.3-i386-bin-DVD1.iso /tmp/mnt [root@puma CentOS] rsync -aHS /tmp/mnt/ /share/CentOS/6.3/os/i386/ [root@puma CentOS] umount /tmp/mnt [root@puma CentOS] mount -ro loop /share/CentOS/6.3/isos/i386/CentOS-6.3-i386-bin-DVD2.iso /tmp/mnt [root@puma CentOS] rsync -aHS /tmp/mnt/ /share/CentOS/6.3/os/i386/
That looks like:
[root@puma i386] pwd /share/CentOS/6.3/os/i386 [root@puma i386] ls CentOS_BuildTag images RELEASE-NOTES-en-US.html RPM-GPG-KEY-CentOS-Debug-6 TRANS.TBL EULA isolinux repodata RPM-GPG-KEY-CentOS-Security-6 GPL Packages RPM-GPG-KEY-CentOS-6 RPM-GPG-KEY-CentOS-Testing-6 [root@puma i386]
I wrote the following script, based on their example. I chose gigenet as the mirror site because Illinois isn’t too far, and they support rsync.
[root@puma i386] emacs -nw /home/sysadmin/bin/rsync-update-CentOS [root@puma i386] chmod a+rx !$ chmod a+rx /home/sysadmin/bin/rsync-update-CentOS [root@puma bin] cat /home/sysadmin/bin/rsync-update-CentOS #!/bin/bash # Script to run regularly to mirror all the updates to the CentOS distribution # Almost identical to model at http://wiki.centos.org/HowTos/CreateLocalMirror # bail out on errors set -e progname=`basename $0` lockfile=/var/lock/subsys/$progname if [ -f $lockfile ]; then echo "$progname is already running" exit 0 fi mirror=rsync://mirrors.gigenet.com:/centos release=6.3 target=/share/CentOS/$release if [ -d $target ] ; then touch $lockfile # omit -v and -P since we're running unattended # be careful with the trailing slashes rsync -aSH --delete --exclude "local*" --exclude "isos" $mirror/$release/ $target/ rm $lockfile else echo "Target directory $target not present" fi
Okay, let’s give it a try:
[root@puma bin] update-root-dirs [root@puma bin] rsync-update-CentOS Linux mirrors.gigenet.com 2.6.32-5-amd64 #1 SMP Mon Oct 3 03:59:20 UTC 2011 x86_64 The programs included with the Debian GNU/Linux system are free software; the exact distribution terms for each program are described in the individual files in /usr/share/doc/*/copyright. Debian GNU/Linux comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by applicable law. [root@puma bin]
Several hours and 29GB later, we have a mirror!
Next, we have to set up a repo file. Ah, they recommend using either ProtectBase or Priorities. These seem like really good idea, though we can’t use it with RHEL, since there isn’t a .repo file (very strange).
I think I will copy a .repo file from one of the new CentOS clients and edit it to use the local repository. We’ll also have to mount the /share volume from Puma to the client. I don’t know yet whether to keep that volume mounted all the time or only when doing updates. Probably only when necessary. We can write a little yum-update script that mounts /share, does the update, and un-mounts it.
