correct type of rpm's

[Christopher777]

Hi, I wonder if u can help me.

We have a red hat 5 server running as VMware on a windows server. I was just wondering what rpm's i need to install for this structure ie rpm386s, 686's et or non *86 rpm etc.

I have been told that I need to download just straight linux rpm's. The 386/686 rpm's etc, I presume are for running on windows box's with intel technology etc. what file extension do i need just for straight linux red hat rpm's and does anyone know of any good websits for this?

Many thanks

 

[lgarner]

Run "uname -m" and see what it gives you. I'm pretty certain it'll be "i686" from what you describe.

As for websites, that depends on what you're looking for. Check rpmforge.net for packages that aren't part of your RHEL distribution.

 

[RhythmAce]

Actually, rpm is a package management system originally developed by redhat which is how we end up with RPM. Redhat is designed to run on many platforms besides Intel. It will run on Motorola and SPARC as well. The package name tells you not only the package but the release version and which processor it is built for. Names that contain 386 will run on any intel processor. If it has 686 in its name, then it will only run on pentium 2 or higher. If you want to keep your system up to date and make sure you have all the right versions, I highly recomend 'yum'. It works a lot like RHN and is a frontend program for rpm (the package management program). Updateing a package is as easy as typing " yum update packagename" or "yum install packagename" for anything not already installed. Not only will it download and install the specified package but it looks to see if there are any dependencies which the package requires and will download and install them too. You can set yum up to run automatically at night to check for new updates. To find out more about yum you can check your man pages (man yum) or do a google search for it. I think you will really like it.

 

[Christopher777]

thanks very much for all your help. I have installed yum on my machine but havent had a chance to play with it much yet. When I run yum install package it says package not on system. I thought this command goes off to the net and grabs it automatically ? or does the rpm need to be on the system for install?

Many thanks

 

[zeland]

You have to be specific about the package name. Try searching for it first with yum search package to see if it returns any hits. The package name in a search can be a partial but not for install.

Once you know the package name, yum will grab it off the internet and install it along with all its dependencies.

--== Anything can go wrong. It's just a matter of how far wrong it will go till people think its right. ==--

 

[LeeMason]

You can also run "yum check-update" to package updates for all of your packages. Under VMware you can run 32bit and 64bit guest operating systems so you could run either version of RHEL under VMware (i386, etc or x86_64). I actually prefer Centos myself as this is a completely open source distribution which has the same basic packages as RHEL - with no RedHat license fees.

Lee Mason
Optimal Projects Ltd

http://www.opl.co.uk

http://www.backupsanywhere.com

 

[RhythmAce]

There is a slim chance that yum isn't configured to use repos yet. Repos (repositories) are where yum looks for and downloads updates from. Type 'yum repolist' and it should list addons, base, extras and updates. If you want to see the actual mirrors, you can look in /etc/yum.repos.d for a file that ends in .repo. Older versions of yum had it in /etc/yum. If your yum install doesn't seem to have all its files, you can run 'yum update yum' and it will update itself. If you want to update your entire system, simply type 'yum update' and it will update all installed packages. This could take hours if you haven't kept up to date.

 

[RhythmAce]

Sorry Lee. We must have been answering this at the same time. You bring up a good point about Centos. If he is using an unlicenced version of RHEL, he can switch to Centos which is identical to redhat but without the branding and graphics. It is legal because Red Hat uses open sources but charges for their support. In fact centos will be coming out with their 5.3 version within the couple of days. It can be checked out at

http://www.centos.org.

 

[Christopher777]

hi, thanks for all your help. When I run repolist it comes back with 0? Also when I do yum update yum I get " skipping security plugin, no data, No packages marked for update? Has my server got config issues? I can ping google etc.

Many thanks

 

[RhythmAce]

I'm going to guess that something went wrong with the yum install. What it should have done is read /etc/redhat-release. This tells yum which repositories to use so it uses the correct packages for your system. I take it you are using an unlicensed disto of rhel5 since you aren't using rhn. If you would like to switch to Centos I can help you with that. Just follow these steps:

first, backup the release file.

cp /etc/redhat-release /etc/redhat-release-saved

then delete the old release and repo info.

rpm -e --nodeps redhat-release-notes redhat-release yum-rhn-plugin redhat-logos

Now get the centos versions.

rpm -Uvh [URL unfurl="true"]http://mirror.stanford.edu/yum/pub/centos/5.2/os/i386/CentOS/centos-release-5-2.el5.centos.i386.rpm[/URL] [URL unfurl="true"]http://mirror.stanford.edu/yum/pub/centos/5.2/os/i386/CentOS/centos-release-notes-5.2-2.i386.rpm[/URL]

Finally, let yum update your entire system.

yum update

If you want to keep what you have, just use rpm to delete yum then reinstall it.

 

[zeland]

This may sound stupid but have checked your RHN account to see if your server is allowed to do updates?

--== Anything can go wrong. It's just a matter of how far wrong it will go till people think its right. ==--

 

[Christopher777]

Thanks so much for all your guys help, Rycthumace, thanks so much for your help to , I will try out a few things and get back to you .

many thanks again

 

[Christopher777]

Hi, sorry to bother u all again. had a bit more success with sorting yum out but wondering what ftp site I should be using in the rhel.debuginfo.repo file for ftp downloads? at the moment its :

rhel-debuginfo]

name=Red Hat Enterprise Linux $releasever - $basearch - Debug

baseurl=ftp://ftp.redhat.com/pub/redhat/linux/enterprise/$releasever/en/os/$basearch/Debuginfo/

enabled=1

gpgcheck=1

gpgkey=file:///etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-redhat-release

but I had a little response back but now getting nothing, could this be a firewall issue to the outside?

many thanks

 

[Christopher777]

Hi,

Not sure if you guys will know this but can u use the redhat "ftp://ftp.redhat.com/pub/redhat/linux/enterprise/$releasever/en/os/$basearch/" repositories if we are only using the 30 day trial version of Red hat ? I would check the account but its not my account and the persons whos it is ,is on holiday.

Thanku for your continued help.

 

[zeland]

I followed the link but it doesn't look like a repository.

--== Anything can go wrong. It's just a matter of how far wrong it will go till people think its right. ==--

 

[Christopher777]

Hi thanks for the reply, that was the default red hat repository according to a website I was on, Is that not the correct offical one? Also I presume u cant get access to there offical one if u dont have support with them anyway ?

Many thanks

 

[RhythmAce]

That how they get the big bucks ;-)