Howto Setup yum repositories to update or install package from ISO CDROM Image

by Vivek Gite · 13 comments

yum (Yellow dog Updater Modified) is a package manager for RPM compatible Linux systems such as CentOS, Fedora core and latest Redhat Enterprise Linux.

So how do you use yum to update / install packages from an ISO of CentOS / FC / RHEL CD?

Creation of yum repositories is handled by a separate tool called createrepo, which generates the necessary XML metadata. If you have a slow internet connection or collection of all downloaded ISO images, use this hack to install rpms from iso images.

Step # 1: Mount an ISO file

Type the following command (replace iso file name with the actual iso file):
# yum install createrepo # mkdir -p /mnt/iso/{1,2,3} # mount -o loop /path/to/centos1.iso /mnt/iso/1

Step # 2: Create a repository

Use createrepo to generate the necessary XML metadata. Type the following commands:
# cd /mnt/iso # createrepo .
Clean repo, enter:
# yum clean all

Step # 3: Create config file

You need to create a repo config file in /etc/yum.repos.d/ directory.
# vi /etc/yum.repos.d/iso.repo
Append following text:
[My ISO Repository] baseurl=file:///mnt/iso enabled=1
Save and close the changes.

Now use yum command to install packages from ISO images:
# yum install package-name

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{ 13 comments… read them below or add one }

1 prince 08.10.07 at 6:10 pm: thanks for the thismanual,can u tell me how to install update and coresponsding dependancies from a url like rpm.pbone.net
2 Henk Kloepping 09.12.07 at 10:48 am: yum may not be able to install ‘createrepo’ as it may need a repository to find it – you know, the one you try to create ;-)..

This can be resolved by installing it ‘by hand’, e.g.

# rpm -i /mnt/iso/4/Server/createrepo-0.4.4-2.fc6.noarch.rpm

Thanks for the article, keep it up!
3 vivek 09.12.07 at 4:23 pm: Henk,

Thanks for pointing out this issue
4 fizzix 04.01.08 at 1:52 pm: Thanks for the tip. Seems to work great for the most part.

I used it to create a local repo for FC7 with the original fc7 isos and an Everything snapshot as of ~Jan ‘08. Most of the packages are fine, but some of them (openoffice.org-pyuno in particular) are prepending a “1:” to the version number so it’s failing the dependency check.

–> Package openoffice.org-pyuno.i386 1:2.2.0-14.8 set to be updated
–> Processing Dependency: openoffice.org-core = 1:2.2.0-14.8 for package:openoffice.org-pyuno
–> Finished Dependency Resolution
Error: Missing Dependency: openoffice.org-core = 1:2.2.0-14.8 is needed by package openoffice.org-pyuno

But I’ve got openoffice.org-2.2.0-14.8 installed!

Looking through yum list available shows a subset of packages with the “1:” prepended to the version number.

Any thoughts on how I can get around this?

Thanks in advance.
5 alice 09.03.08 at 2:11 pm: Use /etc/yum.repos.d/CentOS-Media.repo
6 brandon 01.27.09 at 12:19 am: so I’ve gone through this process, and have all 7 of rhel 5.3 iso’s (cd files) mounted and as the location for the repo, however it doesn’t want to complete without the public key. do I have to generate and import a key?
7 ratzdecan 03.17.09 at 5:34 pm: You have to import all the gpg keys for the packages.
rpm –import /mnt/iso/{1,2,3}/RPM-GPG-KEY

Take a look here:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/fedora-35/public-key-not-installed-468615/
8 Procfs 03.18.09 at 4:41 am: Hi thanks this workes grate
9 Usamantaray 06.19.09 at 6:16 am: Error : Repository ‘MY ISO Repository’ is missing name in configuration, using id
Fix :
# vi /etc/yum.repos.d/iso.repo
[My ISO Repository]
name=ISO
baseurl=file:///mnt/iso
enabled=1
10 Uv 12.12.09 at 11:12 pm: I am wondering how you createrepo within an ISO image
That needs a trick to mount writable as it does not on its own.
Please share this trick….
11 elvir 12.30.09 at 4:02 pm: Thanks for Howto, for some reason when this implemented for RHEL 5.4 in case there is name of repository in iso.repo set up as
[My ISO Repository]
it will complain with error
bad id for repo
and will not index files …
workaround
[MyISORepository] ….no spaces in repsitory name.

Regards,
12 Bijan 01.19.10 at 7:47 am: Hey elvir, thanks for the tipc. I had the exact problem ;)
13 baseurlme 01.28.10 at 2:46 am: Hi and thank you for the tips, they are great. I will be using the following entry, which should work I believe.
[MyUpdateRepository]
name=updater
baseurl=file:///repo_update/updaterepos
enabled=1

Looks good to you? I will be doing this in about two weeks and will let you know how it goes. Any suggestions?
Thanks again for the assist.