Until now there seems to have been no _robust_ way of using a local
repository for yum updates.

Editing the .repo files, as advised by the HowTo, breaks updates of the
repo files themselves, and each of the methods on yum's own web page has
a list of disadvantages. Using a local squid proxy has problems with
mirroring.

But SL6x would finally seem to provide a simple way to do this! From
"man yum.conf":

        As  of  3.2.28,  any  file  in /etc/yum/vars is turned into a
        variable named after the filename 

This means that sl6x.repo can contain baseurl entries such as:

baseurl=http://ftp.scientificlinux.org/linux/scientific/6x/$basearch/updates/security/
                $localrepo/6x/$basearch/updates/security/
http://ftp1.scientificlinux.org/linux/scientific/6x/$basearch/updates/security/  ftp://ftp.scientificlinux.org/linux/scientific/6x/$basearch/updates/security/

and the yum-conf-sl6x rpm could contain the above SL6x.repo plus a
file /etc/yum/vars/localrepo consisting of the single line:
 http://ftp2.scientificlinux.org/linux/scientific

To use a local repository we just replace the content
of /etc/yum/vars/localrepo with the URL of the local repository, eg:
file:///somewhere/SL/scientific

The change is simple, persistent across upgrades and doesn't break the
repo files.

This raises the questions:

1. Am I the only one finding using a local repository to be irksome, or
is everybody else just smarter than I am?

2. Would the SL maintainers be willing to put something like this into
the yum-conf-sl6x RPM?


John