RHEL – Create local repository

For one of my clients we were deploying 12 Red Hat Enterprise Linux servers. The client has quite strict security rules, therefore patch management via RH Network was not an option. RHN proxy server or Satellite server was out of project budget. At the end I created a central RHEL local repository. We dedicated another RHEL server just for this purpose (thanks to virtualization friendly Red Hat licensing).

• Install minimal RHEL installation
• Dedicate one harddrive for the repository packages
• Disable SElinux for httpd (in /etc/selinux/targeted/booleans)

    httpd_disable_trans=1

• Allow access to these two sites on the outgoing firewall:

    209.132.183.44 xmlrpc.rhn.redhat.com
    92.122.186.196 content-xmlrpc.rhn.redhat.com

• Register the installation by running rhn_register and typing registration info
• Mount the repository harddrive into /opt/repository
• Download the repository for the first time:

    yum install yum-utils
    yum install createrepo
    reposync -p /opt/repository/ –repoid=rhel-x86_64-server-5 –l
    createrepo /opt/repository

• Create script to update the repository: /usr/local/bin/update-repository.sh

    echo "Update script started at $(date)" >> /var/log/update-repository.log
    reposync -p /opt/repository/ –repoid=rhel-x86_64-server-5 -l -n
    createrepo /opt/repository/
    echo "Update script ended at $(date)" >> /var/log/update-repository.log

• Make it executable: chmod +x /usr/local/bin/update-repository.sh
• Add it to crontab to run every day at 00:15: crontab -e

    15 0 * * * /usr/local/bin/update-repository.sh > /var/log/update-repository-result.log

• Share the repository via http:

    ln -s /opt/repository/ /var/www/html/create:
    /etc/httpd/conf.d/repository.conf
    <Directory “/var/www/html/repository”>
        Options Indexes +FollowSymLinks
        AllowOverride None
        Order allow,deny
        Allow from all
    </Directory>

• Set up /etc/yum.repos.d/repository.repo on all RHEL clients:

    [repository]
    name=Red Hat Enterprise Linux $releasever – $basearch
    baseurl=http://<URL of the local repository server>/repository
    enabled=1
    gpgcheck=0
    gpgkey=file:///etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-redhat

• Disable RHN on all clients but the local repository: /etc/yum/pluginconf.d/rhnplugin.conf

    [main]
    enabled = 0
    gpgcheck = 1[rhel-i386-server-5]
    enabled = 0