Red Hat Bugzilla – Bug 426419
yumdownloader does not support "--disablerepo" option
Last modified: 2008-06-17 11:48:43 EDT
Description of problem: The yumdownloader tool is a handy way to pre-download both older and newer versions of software. But occasionally, a local repo and the RHEL repos will have duplicate versions of the same file. The "yum downloadonly" command is fine for this, but it requires root privileges and requires considerable finessing to grab only a package, not the dependencies. yumdownloader works fine, *except* that because it cannot obey the -- disablerepo command, you cannot forbid any of the listed repos. And with yum- rhn-plugin in place, as the root user, you cannot even move aside the .repo files to disable them! Matching this feature of yumdownloader to match that of yum itself would thus be quite useful. Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): 1.0.4 How reproducible: Type "yumdownloader --disablerepo=rhel-i386-server-vt-5 kernel" or use any valid repo for your distribution. Steps to Reproduce: 1. 2. 3. Actual results: Application fails. Expected results: Download the current kernel from other, valid repositories. Additional info:
This'll get fixed when we rev. yum-utils. Atm. you can use the yum-downloadonly plugin to do the same thing.
Thanks. The yum-downloadonly plugin is really, really not as effective for the reasons I mentioned: it requires root privilege. The yum command itself also uses lock files, so you can't download an RPM for review while any other process is using the yum command. Given the noticeably poor response times of the RHN network and updates from where I am in the UK, I'd really like to be able to grab just the one package or the few packages I need to look at, especially if it's from a non-RHN repository. And I'd like to do it while the system is doing whatever other yum operations it needs. This poor response time, and the engineering to build local repos to work around it, actually interfere with RHEL sales and encourage the use of CentOS, which has vastly faster update times. I'm using yumdownloader to build a local RHEL mirror to build Xen systems and the "mock" chroot cages for building new software, neither of which gracefully use yum-rhn- plugin without other odd work.
So I assume you don't know about reposync? And as I said I'll fix yumdownloader in the next yum-utils rev. ... which will be ASAP.
I'll look at reposync, thank you for the pointer.
reposync is obviously a superior way to do the mirroring: I approve of it. I think one big reason I missed it is the lack of a man page, and the confusion of other mirroring tools in the world cluttering documentation searches. What would it take to get man pages written for it and the other utilities? If I write them based on the format of hte other yum-utils man pages, could we get them in?
Sure, if you write them I'll make sure they get in, you can post them here. To me or to the yum-utils mailing list: yum-devel@linux.duke.edu
This is basically a free fix, due to the upgrade for RHEL-5.2
This request was evaluated by Red Hat Product Management for inclusion in a Red Hat Enterprise Linux maintenance release. Product Management has requested further review of this request by Red Hat Engineering, for potential inclusion in a Red Hat Enterprise Linux Update release for currently deployed products. This request is not yet committed for inclusion in an Update release.
qa_ack+
An advisory has been issued which should help the problem described in this bug report. This report is therefore being closed with a resolution of ERRATA. For more information on the solution and/or where to find the updated files, please follow the link below. You may reopen this bug report if the solution does not work for you. http://rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHBA-2008-0388.html
Reminder: This bug includes the 'RHTS' QA Whiteboard Keyword. Don't forget to add 'RHTSdone' to the QA Whiteboard along with a comment describing where the RHTS test can be found once the RHTS test has been written. Otherwise, if an RHTS will not be created, please remove RHTS from the qa whiteboard.