CentOS / Fedora Core / RHEL 5 uses yum for software management. Yum allows you to add a new repository as a source to install binary software.

Understanding yum repository

yum repository configured using /etc/yum.conf file. Additional configuration files are also read from the directories set by the reposdir option (default is /etc/yum.repos.d and /etc/yum/repos.d.

RPMforge repository

Usually repository carries extra and useful packages. RPMforge is one of such repository. You can easily configure RPMforge repository for RHEL5 just by running following single RPM command:
# rpm -Uhv http://apt.sw.be/packages/rpmforge-release/rpmforge-release-0.3.6-1.el5.rf.i386.rpm
For 64 bit RHEL 5 Linux, enter:
# rpm -Uhv http://apt.sw.be/packages/rpmforge-release/rpmforge-release-0.3.6-1.el5.rf.x86_64.rpm

Now you can install software from RPMforge.

How do I install 3rd party repository manually?

Let us say you would like to install 3rd party repository from foo.nixcraft.com. Create a file called foo:
# cd /etc/yum.repos.d
# vi foo
Append following code:
[foo]
name=Foo for RHEL/ CentOS $releasever - $basearch
baseurl=http://foo.nixcraft.com/centos/$releasever/$basearch/
enabled=1
gpgcheck=1
gpgkey=http://foo.nixcraft.com/RPM-GPG-KEY.txt

Save and close the file.

Where,

• [foo] : Repository name i.e. The [main] section must exist for yum to do anything.
• name=Foo for RHEL/ CentOS $releasever – $basearch : A human readable string describing the repository name
• baseurl=http://foo.nixcraft.com/centos/$releasever/$basearch/ : Must be a URL to the directory where the yum repository’s ‘repodata’ directory lives
• enabled=1 : Enabled or disabled repo. To disable the repository temporarily, set the enabled to 0
• gpgcheck=1 : Security feature, use GPG key
• gpgkey=http://foo.nixcraft.com/RPM-GPG-KEY.txt : GPL file location

Also you need to import the gpg key for the repository as follows:
# rpm --import http://foo.nixcraft.com/RPM-GPG-KEY.txt

Now you are ready to install software from foo repository. For further information refer to yum.conf man page:
$ man yum.conf
$ man yum

Hope this tip will help you to configure repository as and when required.

See also:

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