Setup Local Yum Repository On CentOS 7

This tutorial describes how to setup a local Yum repository on CentOS 7 system. Also, the same steps should work on RHEL and Scientific Linux 7 systems too.

If you have to install software, security updates and fixes often in multiple systems in your local network, then having a local repository is an efficient way. Because all required packages are downloaded over the fast LAN connection from your local server, so that it will save your Internet bandwidth and reduces your annual cost of Internet.

In this tutorial, I use two systems as described below:

Yum Server OS         : CentOS 7 (Minimal Install)
Yum Server IP Address : 192.168.1.101
Client OS             : CentOS 7 (Minimal Install)
Client IP Address     : 192.168.1.102

Prerequisites

First, mount your CentOS 7 installation DVD. For example, let us mount the installation media on /mnt directory.

mount /dev/cdrom /mnt/

Now the CentOS installation DVD is mounted under /mnt directory. Next install vsftpd package and let the packages available over FTP to your local clients.

To do that change to /mnt/Packages directory:

cd /mnt/Packages/

Now install vsftpd package:

rpm -ivh vsftpd-3.0.2-9.el7.x86_64.rpm

Enable and start vsftpd service:

systemctl enable vsftpd
systemctl start vsftpd

We need a package called “createrepo”  to create our local repository. So let us install it too.

If you did a minimal CentOS installation, then you might need to install the following dependencies first:

rpm -ivh libxml2-python-2.9.1-5.el7.x86_64.rpm 
rpm -ivh deltarpm-3.6-3.el7.x86_64.rpm 
rpm -ivh python-deltarpm-3.6-3.el7.x86_64.rpm

Now install “createrepo” package:

rpm -ivh createrepo-0.9.9-23.el7.noarch.rpm

Build Local Repository

It’s time to build our local repository. Create a storage directory to store all packages from CentOS DVD’s.

As I noted above, we are going to use a FTP server to serve all packages to client systems. So let us create a storage location in our FTP server pub directory.

mkdir /var/ftp/pub/localrepo

Now, copy all the files from CentOS DVD(s) i.e from /mnt/Packages/ directory to the “localrepo” directory:

cp -ar /mnt/Packages/*.* /var/ftp/pub/localrepo/

Again, mount the CentOS installation DVD 2 and copy all the files to /var/ftp/pub/localrepo directory.

Once you copied all the files, create a repository file called “localrepo.repo” under /etc/yum.repos.d/ directory and add the following lines into the file. You can name this file as per your liking:

vi /etc/yum.repos.d/localrepo.repo

Add the following lines:

[localrepo]
name=Unixmen Repository
baseurl=file:///var/ftp/pub/localrepo
gpgcheck=0
enabled=1

Note: Use three slashes(///) in the baseurl.

Now, start building local repository:

createrepo -v /var/ftp/pub/localrepo/

Now the repository building process will start.

Sample Output:

root@server:-mnt-Packages_002

Now, list out the repositories using the following command:

yum repolist

Sample Output:

repo id                                                                    repo name                                                                     status
base/7/x86_64                                                              CentOS-7 - Base                                                               8,465
extras/7/x86_64                                                            CentOS-7 - Extras                                                                30
localrepo                                                                  Unixmen Repository                                                            3,538
updates/7/x86_64                                                           CentOS-7 - Updates                                                              726

Clean the Yum cache and update the repository lists:

yum clean all
yum update

After creating the repository, disable or rename the existing repositories if you only want to install packages from the local repository itself.

Alternatively, you can install packages only from the local repository by mentioning the repository as shown below.

yum install --disablerepo="*" --enablerepo="localrepo" httpd

Sample Output:

Loaded plugins: fastestmirror
Loading mirror speeds from cached hostfile
Resolving Dependencies
--> Running transaction check
---> Package httpd.x86_64 0:2.4.6-17.el7.centos.1 will be installed
--> Processing Dependency: httpd-tools = 2.4.6-17.el7.centos.1 for package: httpd-2.4.6-17.el7.centos.1.x86_64
--> Processing Dependency: /etc/mime.types for package: httpd-2.4.6-17.el7.centos.1.x86_64
--> Processing Dependency: libaprutil-1.so.0()(64bit) for package: httpd-2.4.6-17.el7.centos.1.x86_64
--> Processing Dependency: libapr-1.so.0()(64bit) for package: httpd-2.4.6-17.el7.centos.1.x86_64
--> Running transaction check
---> Package apr.x86_64 0:1.4.8-3.el7 will be installed
---> Package apr-util.x86_64 0:1.5.2-6.el7 will be installed
---> Package httpd-tools.x86_64 0:2.4.6-17.el7.centos.1 will be installed
---> Package mailcap.noarch 0:2.1.41-2.el7 will be installed
--> Finished Dependency Resolution

Dependencies Resolved

===============================================================================================================================================================
 Package                              Arch                            Version                                         Repository                          Size
===============================================================================================================================================================
Installing:
 httpd                                x86_64                          2.4.6-17.el7.centos.1                           localrepo                          2.7 M
Installing for dependencies:
 apr                                  x86_64                          1.4.8-3.el7                                     localrepo                          103 k
 apr-util                             x86_64                          1.5.2-6.el7                                     localrepo                           92 k
 httpd-tools                          x86_64                          2.4.6-17.el7.centos.1                           localrepo                           77 k
 mailcap                              noarch                          2.1.41-2.el7                                    localrepo                           31 k

Transaction Summary
===============================================================================================================================================================
Install  1 Package (+4 Dependent packages)

Total download size: 3.0 M
Installed size: 10 M
Is this ok [y/d/N]:

Disable Firewall And SELinux:

As we are going to use the local repository only in our local area network, there is no need for firewall and SELinux. So, to reduce the complexity, I disabled both Firewalld and SELInux.

To disable the Firewalld, enter the following commands:

systemctl stop firewalld
systemctl disable firewalld

To disable SELinux, edit file /etc/sysconfig/selinux,

vi /etc/sysconfig/selinux

Set SELINUX=disabled.

[...]
SELINUX=disabled
[...]

Reboot your server to take effect the changes.

Client Side Configuration

Now, go to your client systems. Create a new repository file as shown above under /etc/yum.repos.d/ directory.

vi /etc/yum.repos.d/localrepo.repo

and add the following contents:

[localrepo]
name=Unixmen Repository
baseurl=ftp://192.168.1.101/pub/localrepo
gpgcheck=0
enabled=1

Note: Use double slashes in the baseurl and 192.168.1.101 is yum server IP Address.

Now, list out the repositories using the following command:

yum repolist

Clean the Yum cache and update the repository lists:

yum clean all
yum update

Disable or rename the existing repositories if you only want to install packages from the server local repository itself.

Alternatively, you can install packages from the local repository by mentioning the repository as shown below.

yum install --disablerepo="*" --enablerepo="localrepo" httpd

Sample Output:

Loaded plugins: fastestmirror
Loading mirror speeds from cached hostfile
Resolving Dependencies
--> Running transaction check
---> Package httpd.x86_64 0:2.4.6-17.el7.centos.1 will be installed
--> Processing Dependency: httpd-tools = 2.4.6-17.el7.centos.1 for package: httpd-2.4.6-17.el7.centos.1.x86_64
--> Processing Dependency: /etc/mime.types for package: httpd-2.4.6-17.el7.centos.1.x86_64
--> Processing Dependency: libaprutil-1.so.0()(64bit) for package: httpd-2.4.6-17.el7.centos.1.x86_64
--> Processing Dependency: libapr-1.so.0()(64bit) for package: httpd-2.4.6-17.el7.centos.1.x86_64
--> Running transaction check
---> Package apr.x86_64 0:1.4.8-3.el7 will be installed
---> Package apr-util.x86_64 0:1.5.2-6.el7 will be installed
---> Package httpd-tools.x86_64 0:2.4.6-17.el7.centos.1 will be installed
---> Package mailcap.noarch 0:2.1.41-2.el7 will be installed
--> Finished Dependency Resolution

Dependencies Resolved

================================================================================
 Package          Arch        Version                      Repository      Size
================================================================================
Installing:
 httpd            x86_64      2.4.6-17.el7.centos.1        localrepo      2.7 M
Installing for dependencies:
 apr              x86_64      1.4.8-3.el7                  localrepo      103 k
 apr-util         x86_64      1.5.2-6.el7                  localrepo       92 k
 httpd-tools      x86_64      2.4.6-17.el7.centos.1        localrepo       77 k
 mailcap          noarch      2.1.41-2.el7                 localrepo       31 k

Transaction Summary
================================================================================
Install  1 Package (+4 Dependent packages)

Total download size: 3.0 M
Installed size: 10 M
Is this ok [y/d/N]: y
Downloading packages:
(1/5): apr-1.4.8-3.el7.x86_64.rpm                          | 103 kB   00:01     
(2/5): apr-util-1.5.2-6.el7.x86_64.rpm                     |  92 kB   00:01     
(3/5): httpd-tools-2.4.6-17.el7.centos.1.x86_64.rpm        |  77 kB   00:00     
(4/5): httpd-2.4.6-17.el7.centos.1.x86_64.rpm              | 2.7 MB   00:00     
(5/5): mailcap-2.1.41-2.el7.noarch.rpm                     |  31 kB   00:01     
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Total                                              1.0 MB/s | 3.0 MB  00:02     
Running transaction check
Running transaction test
Transaction test succeeded
Running transaction
  Installing : apr-1.4.8-3.el7.x86_64                                       1/5 
  Installing : apr-util-1.5.2-6.el7.x86_64                                  2/5 
  Installing : httpd-tools-2.4.6-17.el7.centos.1.x86_64                     3/5 
  Installing : mailcap-2.1.41-2.el7.noarch                                  4/5 
  Installing : httpd-2.4.6-17.el7.centos.1.x86_64                           5/5 
  Verifying  : mailcap-2.1.41-2.el7.noarch                                  1/5 
  Verifying  : httpd-2.4.6-17.el7.centos.1.x86_64                           2/5 
  Verifying  : apr-util-1.5.2-6.el7.x86_64                                  3/5 
  Verifying  : apr-1.4.8-3.el7.x86_64                                       4/5 
  Verifying  : httpd-tools-2.4.6-17.el7.centos.1.x86_64                     5/5 

Installed:
  httpd.x86_64 0:2.4.6-17.el7.centos.1                                          

Dependency Installed:
  apr.x86_64 0:1.4.8-3.el7                      apr-util.x86_64 0:1.5.2-6.el7   
  httpd-tools.x86_64 0:2.4.6-17.el7.centos.1    mailcap.noarch 0:2.1.41-2.el7   

Complete!

That’s it. Now, you will be able to install softwares from your server local repository.

Cheers!