Linux Package Managers
So many different ways of doing the same thing, with tricky aspects to boot. Here are some notes regarding package managers and dependency resolution used by different distros
For a summary showing how to do the most common operations on various distros see this great Pacman Summary
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RPM Tricks
Some good rpm and yum tips are here
--replacepkgs #Install it anyway
http://www.rpm.org/max-rpm/s1-rpm-install-additional-options.html
--oldpackage # "Upgrade" To an older version of a package
NOTE: The the repackage option has been removed in rpm 4.6.0 per the release notes here
--repackage # Be able to revert to prior installs
http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/7034
Note: When installing repacked rpms, you may need to disable digest and md5 checking, for example:
rpm -Uvh --nodigest --nomd5 /var/spool/repackage/VMware-vpxa-4.1.0-258902.i386.rpm
For more info, see the above LInux Journal article and this post
Rebuild an RPM from a currently install package:
http://rpmrebuild.sourceforge.net/rpmrebuild.1.html
Some simple examples of using RPM query tags can be found here
64-Bit
To remove a specific architecture if you have multiple ones installed is simply:
rpm -e zlib.i386 (or rpm -e zlib.x86_64)
Configure RPM's default query tags to display the architecture (very handy):
echo "%_query_all_fmt %%{name}-%%{version}-%%{release}.%%{arch}" >> ~/.rpmmacros
OpenSuse
http://en.opensuse.org/SDB:Zypper_usage_11.3
For a quick guide on zypper see this basic tutorial
Lots of options. Zypper and Yasy are defaults. (smart and rug are no longer around.) Don't want to use them because you are used to yum? No problem, just install yum, though you may have to set up repos for it separately as zypper use separate repos.d directories in /etc/zypp/repos.d whereas yum's are in /etc/yum/repos.d
Zypper:
- No longer Lacks the equivalent to yum localinstall.
Smart:
Should you need to turn off GPG Signature checking:
- smart config --set rpm-check-signatures=false
- Do what you need to do
- smart config --set rpm-check-signatures=true
Yes, yes - amazingly unsafe, etc. etc.
Yum:
- zypper install yum
Will install yum and set up repos in /etc/yum/
- Turn off GPG validation (GPGCheck=0) in /etc/yum/yum.conf (Only if needed and you trust the source of the RPM of course)
- Install RPMs locally and resolve needed dependencies by using yum localinstall package.rpm Note that you must first install yum-utils to have the localinstall feature.
Verify RPMs
To ensure an rpm you downloaded is not corrupted, verify its self-consistency with:
rpm -K --nopgp *rpm
RPM GPG Signatures
If a package is not signed you can sign it yourself, or turn of GPGCheck in yum.conf
In order to sign packages you need to configure a GPG key and then create a file in the users home directory which contains some environmental variables used by GPG to sign packages.
1) Run gpg --gen-key to create a GPG key which will be stored in .gnupg in your home directory
2) To see the list of keys in your key ring, run gpg --list-keys which will produce output similar to:
pub 1024D/34E16DF5 2008-11-16 uid Joe Blow (GPG Key to sign stuff locally) <JoeBlow@gmail.com> sub 2048g/7031624D 2008-11-16
2) Create an .rpmmacros file in the home directory which contains:
%_signature gpg %_gpg_path /root/.gnupg %_gpg_name 34E16DF5 %_gpgbin /usr/bin/gpg
Note the 34E16DF5 value is the pub key ID given in the gpg --list-keys output above.
To verify the signature of an RPM, use:
rpm --checksig –verbose package.rpm
For additional information on GPG and RPMs see:
http://www.cognitus.net/html/howto/rpmSigning.html
http://fedoranews.org/tchung/gpg/
http://www.gnupg.org/gph/en/manual.html
Creating yum repo server
Instructions for creating your own yum repo server:
