2nd attempt since I seem to be having typing problems today... I know this isn't the SL devos fault, but maybe I'm doing something unexpected or being silly. Either seems fairly likely today. It seems that yum shell doesn't understand check-update, so feeding it info like: makecache repo enable sl-damtpbits repo enable ..... repo enable ..... makecache check-update results in: $ yum shell yum.repo.shell Loading "skip-broken" plugin Loading "fastestmirror" plugin Loading "priorities" plugin Loading "kernel-module" plugin Loading "changelog" plugin Loading "downloadonly" plugin Loading "tsflags" plugin Setting up Yum Shell Setting up repositories sl-testedbits 100% |=========================| 1.1 kB 00:00 sl-mirror-base 100% |=========================| 1.1 kB 00:00 Loading mirror speeds from cached hostfile Setting up repositories sl-damtpbits 100% |=========================| 951 B 00:00 Loading mirror speeds from cached hostfile Reading repository metadata in from local files 0 packages excluded due to repository priority protections Setting up repositories sl-mirror-security 100% |=========================| 951 B 00:00 Loading mirror speeds from cached hostfile Reading repository metadata in from local files 0 packages excluded due to repository priority protections Setting up repositories sl-mirror-fastbugs 100% |=========================| 951 B 00:00 Loading mirror speeds from cached hostfile Reading repository metadata in from local files 0 packages excluded due to repository priority protections usage: yum [options] < grouplist, localinstall, groupinfo, localupdate, resolvedep, erase, deplist, groupremove, makecache, upgrade, provides, shell, install, whatprovides, groupinstall, update, groupupdate, info, search, check-update, list, remove, clean, grouperase > None Shell specific arguments: config - set config options repository (or repo) - enable/disable repositories transaction (or ts) - list, reset or run the transaction set run - run the transaction set exit or quit - exit the shell Leaving Shell replacing 'check-update' with 'list updates' does something sane, and ends with a list of updates from the repos we now have enabled. Just to make me feel less confident in yum the following does not do what I would expect: repo list repo enable sl-damtpbits repo list Instead of showing the repo being (temporarily) enabled it appears not to have affected the list at all. $ yum shell Loading "skip-broken" plugin Loading "fastestmirror" plugin Loading "priorities" plugin Loading "kernel-module" plugin Loading "changelog" plugin Loading "downloadonly" plugin Loading "tsflags" plugin Setting up Yum Shell > repo list repo id repo name status ... sl-damtpbits DAMTP extra bits for SL5 disabled ... > repo enable sl-damtpbits Setting up repositories Loading mirror speeds from cached hostfile Disabling Repository > repo list repo id repo name status ... sl-damtpbits DAMTP extra bits for SL5 disabled ... however if I do makecache *before* doing repo enable then it works... $ yum shell Loading "skip-broken" plugin Loading "fastestmirror" plugin Loading "priorities" plugin Loading "kernel-module" plugin Loading "changelog" plugin Loading "downloadonly" plugin Loading "tsflags" plugin Setting up Yum Shell > repo list repo id repo name status ... sl-damtpbits DAMTP extra bits for SL5 disabled ... > makecache Setting up repositories sl-testedbits 100% |=========================| 1.1 kB 00:00 sl-mirror-base 100% |=========================| 1.1 kB 00:00 Loading mirror speeds from cached hostfile > repo enable sl-damtpbits Setting up repositories sl-damtpbits 100% |=========================| 951 B 00:00 Loading mirror speeds from cached hostfile Reading repository metadata in from local files 0 packages excluded due to repository priority protections > repo list repo id repo name status ... sl-damtpbits DAMTP extra bits for SL5 enabled ... Finally (I hope) 'repo enable *' causes a python error and backtrace but then I think that is because it doesn't like wildcards here. Is 'yum shell' something I shouldn't be playing with? I was doing this to avoid having to make 2 calls to yum: yum --enablerepo=... --enablerepo=... makecache yum --enablerepo=... --enablerepo=... check-update the makecache being to ensure that the cache (of the repos I'm normally leaving off) is fresh for the check-update. From the manual I'd assumed it tuned into calling yum shell with something like: repo enable ... repo enable ... makecache check-update Instead it seems I need to feed it: makecache repo enable ... repo enable ... makecache list updates which is fair enough if only I understood why... BTW is the installonlyn yum plugin available (as part of some package somewhere)? http://people.redhat.com/~katzj/installonlyn.py # A plugin for yum which only leaves n 'kernel' packages installed instead # of infinitely doing installonly I found a thread on a Centos mailing list suggesting it was part of yum-utils but that was for Centos-4 anyway. http://lists.centos.org/pipermail/centos-devel/2006-August/002361.html FC 5 and 6 appear to have this functionality included in the base yum package and so does the yum in TUV-el5 if you see what I mean. $ rpm -qlp yum-3.0.1-5.el5.src.rpm | grep installonlyn installonlyn.py I don't know if it is *enabled* by default in those releases though! -- Jon Peatfield, Computer Officer, DAMTP, University of Cambridge Mail: [log in to unmask] Web: http://www.damtp.cam.ac.uk/