How to add a Yum repository
There are a few different ways to add a Yum repository to your system, depending on what you need from the repository. Let’s look at three different options.
In most scenarios, when you build out a new system, you want to keep the installation footprint as small as possible. As a result, not all repositories and packages are typically installed at that time. Fortunately, repositories can be enabled and disabled through yum at any time, and there are many different sources you can choose from.
In this example, we’ll look specifically at Fedora, but the process is similar across other distributions utilizing yum .
Great Linux resources
It is always recommended you use a known repository, such as Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux (EPEL), which is hosted at fedoraproject.org. Or, you might need a specific version of MySQL, which is hosted at mysql.com. There are also circumstances where you might need to add a lesser-known repository, such as remirepo.net for versions of PHP, or even host your own repository.
Once you determine which repository you need, there are several different ways to install and enable it.
Install a repository .rpm
The first is to install an .rpm with the repository information. The following command installs the EPEL repository for CentOS 8:
# yum install https://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/epel-release-latest-8.noarch.rpm Set up only a section of a repository
In the case of needing a specific repository, as in the case of PHP 7.2, you first need to install the repo and then disable and enable repositories using yum-config-manager as follows:
$ sudo yum -y install http://rpms.remirepo.net/enterprise/remi-release-7.rpm $ sudo yum-config-manager --disable remi-php54 $ sudo yum-config-manager --enable remi-php72 Manually set up a repository
The last method of configuring a yum repository manually, where we create a .repo file within /etc/yum.repo.d using a text editor. In this example, we will create the repository file for MySQL 5.7:
$ nano /etc/yum.repo.d/mysql57-community.repo [mysql57-community] name=MySQL 5.7 Community Server baseurl=http://repo.mysql.com/yum/mysql-5.7-community/el/7/$basearch/ enabled=1 gpgcheck=1 gpgkey=file:///etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-mysql Now, let’s discuss the lines we configured. The first three lines contain the minimum information you need when creating a .repo file. The first line is the unique identifier for the section and is enclosed in [] :
Note: You can have more than section (repository) in a .repo file.
The second line in our file is the name we choose to describe the repository:
name=MySQL 5.7 Community Server The third line is the location ( baseurl ) of the repository. In this case, we are using HTTP to access it:
baseurl=http://repo.mysql.com/yum/mysql-5.7-community/el/7/$basearch/ As we mentioned, the first three lines are mandatory to configure a repository. We have also configured three more options. In the first additional option, we configured the toggle enabled , where 0 is disabled and 1 is enabled:
In the last two lines, we configured our information related to GPG. The first of these lines is the toggle to check for GPG and the second is the location of the key you are checking against:
gpgcheck=1 gpgkey=file:///etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-mysql To see a complete list of repository options, see the man page as follows:
Now that you have your new repository configured using one of these methods, you should verify that it is configured properly using the yum-config-manager command from earlier to enable and disable PHP sections:
# yum-config-manager mysql57-community This command returns the complete information for the repository:
[root@centos3 yum.repos.d]# yum-config-manager mysql57-community Loaded plugins: fastestmirror ================================================================================================= repo: mysql57-community ================================================================================================== [mysql57-community] async = True bandwidth = 0 base_persistdir = /var/lib/yum/repos/x86_64/7 baseurl = http://repo.mysql.com/yum/mysql-5.7-community/el/7/x86_64/ cache = 0 cachedir = /var/cache/yum/x86_64/7/mysql57-community check_config_file_age = True compare_providers_priority = 80 cost = 1000 deltarpm_metadata_percentage = 100 deltarpm_percentage = enabled = True enablegroups = True exclude = failovermethod = priority ftp_disable_epsv = False gpgcadir = /var/lib/yum/repos/x86_64/7/mysql57-community/gpgcadir gpgcakey = gpgcheck = True gpgdir = /var/lib/yum/repos/x86_64/7/mysql57-community/gpgdir gpgkey = file:///etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-mysql hdrdir = /var/cache/yum/x86_64/7/mysql57-community/headers http_caching = all includepkgs = ip_resolve = keepalive = True keepcache = False mddownloadpolicy = sqlite mdpolicy = group:small mediaid = metadata_expire = 21600 metadata_expire_filter = read-only:present metalink = minrate = 0 mirrorlist = mirrorlist_expire = 86400 name = MySQL 5.7 Community Server old_base_cache_dir = password = persistdir = /var/lib/yum/repos/x86_64/7/mysql57-community pkgdir = /var/cache/yum/x86_64/7/mysql57-community/packages proxy = False proxy_dict = proxy_password = proxy_username = repo_gpgcheck = False retries = 10 skip_if_unavailable = False ssl_check_cert_permissions = True sslcacert = sslclientcert = sslclientkey = sslverify = True throttle = 0 timeout = 30.0 ui_id = mysql57-community/x86_64 ui_repoid_vars = releasever, basearch username = With your repository installed, you are ready to use yum to install the packages located there!
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Note: Edit scripts to match your RHEL version! You can view it with hostnamectl .
EPEL is a repository targetted at Fedora users. It can be used with the following systems:
Install via package manager
sudo yum install epel-release If the package was not found using your package manager, you can install it manually.
wget https://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/epel-release-latest-7.noarch.rpm sudo yum install ./epel-release-latest-*.noarch.rpm To access the majority of the packages for free you can use CentOS ones.
Create a new repository location.
nano /etc/yum.repos.d/CentOS-Base.repo Paste the following content.
# CentOS-Base.repo # # The mirror system uses the connecting IP address of the client and the # update status of each mirror to pick mirrors that are updated to and # geographically close to the client. You should use this for CentOS updates # unless you are manually picking other mirrors. # # If the mirrorlist= does not work for you, as a fall back you can try the # remarked out baseurl= line instead. # # [base] name=CentOS-7 - Base mirrorlist=http://mirrorlist.centos.org/?release=7&arch=$basearch&repo=os&infra=$infra #baseurl=http://mirror.centos.org/centos/7/os/$basearch/ gpgcheck=1 gpgkey=file:///etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-CentOS-7 #released updates [updates] name=CentOS-7 - Updates mirrorlist=http://mirrorlist.centos.org/?release=7&arch=$basearch&repo=updates&infra=$infra #baseurl=http://mirror.centos.org/centos/7/updates/$basearch/ gpgcheck=1 gpgkey=file:///etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-CentOS-7 #additional packages that may be useful [extras] name=CentOS-7 - Extras mirrorlist=http://mirrorlist.centos.org/?release=7&arch=$basearch&repo=extras&infra=$infra #baseurl=http://mirror.centos.org/centos/7/extras/$basearch/ gpgcheck=1 gpgkey=file:///etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-CentOS-7 #additional packages that extend functionality of existing packages [centosplus] name=CentOS-7 - Plus mirrorlist=http://mirrorlist.centos.org/?release=7&arch=$basearch&repo=centosplus&infra=$infra #baseurl=http://mirror.centos.org/centos/7/centosplus/$basearch/ gpgcheck=1 enabled=0 gpgkey=file:///etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-CentOS-7 After adding a repository, simply update your package manager sources and install new packages versions.
Update your system packages.