Yum automated software installation and update for Red Hat Linux
Yum is the easiest way to keep all programs up to date. It downloads and installs the
latest version of a program. A single command can update all software installed, including
third-party software, security updates and operating system. It can do the updating
automatically in the night. In this howto, we install yum and make it do all the above.
Yum is similar to, but better than apt, apt4rpm, windows update, up2date, yast and many
other package managers I have seen.
Yum works in a safe, standardized way. It uses rpm (Red Hat package manager) for
installing programs. Authenticity of packages is checked with strong gpg encryption.
Package repositories are just folders on a web server.
This tutorial is for Red Hat 9. If you are using the newer Fedora Core 1 or later,
you already have yum installed. For configuring Fedora version, see
unofficial Fedora Faq.
We will install yum, then choose trusted
packagers and start installing programs. We
will also see some yum tips.
(c) Tero Karvinen
Install yum
Red Hat has rpm package manager installed by default. We use rpm to install yum.
Download
yum-2.0.3-0.fdr.1.rh90.noarch.rpm
Open command prompt: Main menu (the red hat menu on bottom left corner), System Tools,
Terminal. Become root with su -. Notice how your prompt turns from $ to #.
Go to the folder where you downloaded yum. Most likely
cd /home/your-user-name/. If you can see the file with ls, you
are on the right place.
rpm -Uvh yum*.noarch.rpm
In the command above, rpm -Uvh means installing just like rpm you may have used allready.
-i-Uvh just displays some extra info and
erases old
version of program if necessary. You can rpm -q yum to see if yum is
installed. It should tell you the version number of yum.
# rpm -q yum yum-2.0.3-0.fdr.1.rh90
Add trusted packagers to your keyring
In yum, it really does not matter if enemy takes over the internet and fakes to be
some website offering software. All software is cryptographically checked before
installation (if you have set gpgcheck=1 in yum.conf). To install some software, we must tell yum who we trust.
rpm --import /usr/share/doc/yum-*/Fedora-GPG-KEY
rpm --import /usr/share/doc/yum-*/RPM-GPG-KEY
We installed the key of Red Hat Inc, as we obviously trust the company that compiled
our operating system. We installed Fedora’s key, as we have allready installed yum
packaged by Fedora. These two keys are probably the most usefull ones.
Start installing software
yum install lynx
Because it is your first run, it first downloads headers that contain information
about what is available. This can take as long as 20 minutes, but it only needs to be
done once. Yum prints the names of headers it downloads
Gathering header information file(s) from server(s) Server: Fedora Linux / stable for Red Hat Linux 9 (i386) Server: Fedora Linux / testing for Red Hat Linux 9 (i386) Server: Red Hat Linux 9 (i386) Server: Red Hat Linux 9 (i386) updates Finding updated packages Downloading needed headers getting /var/cache/yum/fedora-stable/headers/leafnode-0-1.9.43-0.fdr.1.rh90.i386.hdr getting /var/cache/yum/fedora-stable/headers/libzvt-devel-0-2.0.1-0.fdr.5.rh90.i386.hdr getting /var/cache/yum/fedora-stable/headers/mhash-devel-0-0.8.18-0.fdr.1.rh90.i386.hdr [..] Resolving dependencies Dependencies resolved I will do the following: [install: lynx 0-2.8.5-7.1.i386] Is this ok [y/N]: y
Accept with y and press enter. Yum downloads requested packages and
installs them.
If any additional programs, dependencies, are needed, yum
will ask if you want to install those too. For example, lynx needs perl-CGI, so if we don’t have
that installed yet, yum installs it.
Calculating available disk space - this could take a bit lynx 100 % done 1/1 Installed: lynx 0-2.8.5-7.1.i386 Transaction(s) Complete
Now all users can use lynx right away. No reboots, no changing cdroms, no nuisance.
If you are still root (have a # on your command prompt),
exit.
Now try lynx. If you can run lynx (the text mode web
browser), you have succeeded. Congratulations, you have now installed
the state of the art package manager yum.
Yum tips
That was just too easy, wasn’t it? To have some fun with yum, try
yum list "*ssh*" # lists packages that have "ssh" in the name chkconfig yum on # make yum update all programs every night yum remove up2date # remove a program, dependencies handled yum -y install curl # -y answers "yes" to all questions
Links
Duke University 2003: Yellow
dog Updater, Modified. Official homepage of yum. Has a list of yum
repositories.
Fedora Project 2003: Fedora.us. The biggest yum
repository, now merging with Red Hat.
Saou, Mathias 2003: Freshrpms.net. The first big
automated software repository
for Red Hat. Best packages of many programs, such as mplayer and sylpheed. Good
documentation.
To use yum in some real application, try some of my other tutorials. Most of them use
yum to install software.
Copyright
Tested with Red Hat Linux 9 Shrike
Copyright 2003-09-28, 2003-09-29, 2003-11-05 (yum list ssh),
2003-11-19 (Fedora Core advise+link), 2004-05-14 (example commands upd) Tero Karvinen.
GNU Free Documentation License.
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