Adding a New Repository
On Photon OS, you can add a new repository from which tdnf
installs packages. To add a new repository, you create a repository configuration file with a .repo
extension and place it in /etc/yum.repos.d
. The repository can be on either the Internet or a local server containing your in-house applications.
Be careful if you add a repository that is on the Internet. Installing packages from untrusted or unverified sources might put the security, stability, or compatibility of your system at risk. It might also make your system harder to maintain.
On Photon OS, the existing repositories appear in the /etc/yum.repos.d
directory:
ls /etc/yum.repos.d/
photon-extras.repo
photon-iso.repo
photon-updates.repo
photon.repo
To view the format and information that a new repository configuration file should contain, see one of the .repo
files. The following is an example:
baseurl=https://https://packages.vmware.com/photon/
metalink=http://example.com/*username*/metalink/metalink
gpgkey=file:///etc/pki/rpm-gpg/VMWARE-RPM-GPG-KEY
gpgcheck=1
enabled=1
skip_if_unavailable=True
The repository settings details are as follows:
The minimal information needed to establish a repository is an ID and human-readable name of the repository and its base URL. The ID, which appears in square brackets, must be one word that is unique among the system’s repositories; `.
The
baseurl
is a URL for the repository’s repodata directory. For a repository on a local server that can be accessed directly or mounted as a file system, the base URL can be a file referenced byfile://
. Example:baseurl=file:///server/repo/
By using
metalink
, you can point to multiple URLs to download therepomd.xml
file. A sample metalink file is as follows:cat metalink
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <metalink version="3.0" xmlns="http://www.metalinker.org/" type="dynamic" pubdate="Wed, 05 Feb 2020 08:14:56 GMT" generator="mirrormanager" xmlns:mm0="http://fedorahosted.org/mirrormanager"> <files> <file name="repomd.xml"> <size>2035</size> <verification> <hash type="sha1">478437547dac9f5a73fe905d2ed2a0a5b153ef46</hash> <hash type="sha512">6c6fbfba288ec90905a8d2220a0bfd2a50e835b7faaefedb6978df6ca59c5bce25cc1ddd33023e305b20bcffc702ee2bd61d0855f4f1b2fd7c8f5109e428a764</hash> </verification> <resources maxconnections="1"> <url protocol="http" type="http" location="IN" preference=“100”>https://packages.vmware.com/photon/3.0/photon_updates_3.0_x86_64/repodata/repomd.xml</url> </resources> </file> </files> </metalink>
In the metalink file, provide the preference for each url, so
tdnf
first tries to sync the repository data from the mirror which has the highest preference. If it fails due to any reason,tdnf
will sync to the next mirror url with the lower preference than before one.Note: Ensure that the shasum for
respomd.xml
in all the mirrors should be sameThe
gpgcheck
setting specifies whether to check the GPG signature.The
repo_gpgcheck
setting allowstdnf
to verify the signature of a repository metadata before downloading the repository artifacts. Whenrepo_gpgcheck
is set to1
in the tdnf.conf file, all repositories will be checked for the metadata signatures. The default value is0
. If a repository hasrepo_gpgcheck
enabled,arepomd.xml.asc
file is downloaded and the API equivalent ofgpg --verify repomd.xml.asc repomd.xml
is done. Ifrepomd.xml.asc
is missing, repository is deactivated. Ifrepomd.xml.asc
fails to verify, the repository is deactivated. The public key for verification must be manually installed for the initial implementation.Note: Ensure that you have installed
libgcrypt
for this implementation.The
gpgkey
setting furnishes the URL for the repository’s ASCII-armored GPG key file.tdnf
uses the GPG key to verify a package if its key has not been imported into the RPM database.The repository configuration also supports public keys that are remote for the
gpgkey
option. So, the URLs starting withhttp
,https
, orftp
can be used forgpgkey
.For example: gpgkey=http://build-squid.eng.vmware.com/build/mts/release/bora-16633979/publish/packages/keys/vmware.asc
The
enabled
setting tellstdnf
whether to poll the repository. Ifenabled
is set to1
,tdnf
polls it; if it is set to0
,tdnf
ignores it.The
skip_if_unavailable
setting instructstdnf
to continue running if the repository goes offline.The
retries
setting in the repository configuration specifies the number of retries when downloading a file throws an error. The default is10
.The
timeout
setting specifies the number of seconds that a download is allowed to take or0
for no limit. Note that this is an absolute value and may interrupt large file downloads.The
minrate
setting specifies the limit below which if the download rate falls,tdnf
will abort the download. The default value is0
(no limit
).The
maxrate
setting specifies the maximum download rate (throttle). The default value is0
(no limit
).You can use the skip metadata download settings to skip the download of metadata files for repositories with a lot of packages. When you skip the download of the metadata files, it improves the download time of the packages and the processing time of refreshing the cache.
The following list describes the benefits and drawbacks of the skip metadata settings:
skip_md_filelists
: Theskip_md_filelists=1
setting deactivates the download of the complete list of files in all packages. The setting improves the download and processing time but affects therepoquery
queries for files. The default value is0
.skip_md_other
: Theskip_md_other=1
setting deactivates the download of miscellaneous data like the changelog data of packages. The setting improves the download and processing time but affects therepoquery
queries for changelogs. The default value is0
.skip_md_updateinfo
: Theskip_md_updateinfo=1
setting deactivates the download of the update info data. The setting improves the download and processing time but affects the output of theupdateinfo
command. The default value is0
.
Other options and variables can appear in the repository file. The variables that are used with some of the options can reduce future changes to the repository configuration files. There are variables to replace the value of the version of the package and to replace the base architecture. For more information, see the man page for
yum.conf
on the full version of Photon OS:man yum.conf
The following is an example of how to add a new repository for a local server that tdnf
polls for packages:
cat > /etc/yum.repos.d/apps.repo << "EOF"
[localapps]
name=Local In-House Applications(x86_64)
baseurl=file:///appserver/apps
enabled=1
skip_if_unavailable=True
EOF
Because this new repository resides on a local server, make sure the Photon OS machine can connect to it by mounting it.
After establishing a new repository, you must run the following command to update the cached binary metadata for the repositories that tdnf
polls:
tdnf makecache
Refreshing metadata for: 'VMware Photon Linux 1.0(x86_64)Updates'
Refreshing metadata for: 'VMware Photon Extras 1.0(x86_64)'
Refreshing metadata for: 'Local In-House Applications(x86_64)'
Refreshing metadata for: 'VMware Photon Linux 1.0(x86_64)'
Metadata cache created.