Adding a New Repository

Adding a New Repository

With Photon OS, you can add a new repository from which tdnf installs packages. To do so, 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's 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 /etc/yum.repos.d:

ls /etc/yum.repos.d/
lightwave.repo
photon-extras.repo
photon-iso.repo
photon-updates.repo
photon.repo 

Looking at one of the .repo files reveals the format and information that a new repository configuration file should contain:

cat /etc/yum.repos.d/lightwave.repo
[lightwave]
name=VMware Lightwave 1.0(x86_64)
baseurl=https://dl.bintray.com/vmware/lightwave
gpgkey=file:///etc/pki/rpm-gpg/VMWARE-RPM-GPG-KEY
gpgcheck=1
enabled=1
skip_if_unavailable=True

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 amoung the system's repositories; in the example above, it is [lightwave].

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 by file://. Example:

baseurl=file:///server/repo/

The gpgcheck setting specifies whether to check the GPG signature. 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. gpgkey can be a local file:// URL, or a remote URL for the http, https, ftp and ftps protocols. Note that the http and ftp protocols are not secure, and if possible the secure protocols https or ftps should be used. Multiple keys can be specified separated by spaces.

The enabled setting tells tdnf whether to poll the repository. If enabled is set to 1, tdnf polls it; if it is set to 0, tdnf ignores it.

The skip_if_unavailable setting instructs tdnf to continue running if the repository goes offline.

Other options and variables can appear in the repository file. The variables that go 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

Here 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, for instance, 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. Example:

tdnf makecache
Refreshing metadata for: 'VMware Lightwave 1.0(x86_64)'
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.