Using stmyum

Index

Introduction stmyum Installing stmyum in ST Linux Distributions 2.0 and 2.2 Configuring stmyum Using stmyum

Introduction

From the official YUM web page:

Yum is an automatic updater and package installer/remover for rpm systems. It automatically computes dependencies and figures out what things should occur to install packages. It makes it easier to maintain groups of machines without having to manually update each one using rpm.

yum has a number of advantages over using RPM directly, such as:

• automatic updates of installed packages
• automatic checks for newly available and updated packages
• for each package to be installed, all the dependency packages are installed automatically
• groups of packages can be installed as a single unit
• offers increased security as all packages are signed

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stmyum

The ST yum application is called stmyum to ensure that it does not interfere with any native yum installation. It is located in /opt/STM/STLinux-X.X/host/bin and the PATH environment variable must include this directory to be able to use it.

Installing stmyum in ST Linux Distributions 2.0 and 2.2

The ST Linux 2.3 installer script installs stmyum automatically and uses it to carry out the entire installation. This means that stmyum does not need to be installed separately if the installer script has already been used.

With older distributions (ST Linux 2.0 and 2.2), the stmyum package may need to be installed manually after the initial installation. This package is supplied on the ST Linux distribution CD ROMs or it can be downloaded from the FTP server.

host# rpm -i stlinux20-host-yum-XXX.rpm

host# rpm -i stlinux22-host-yum-XXX.rpm

Configuring stmyum

This section is under construction.

The information that stmyum needs to locate the RPM files for the distribution is held in a configuration file. The file has the path /opt/STM/STLinux-X.X/host/etc/yum.conf.

Note: You may have to set up your proxy environment variable if you are behind a firewall and need to use a proxy server.

yum.conf file syntax

The yum.conf man page gives a full explanation of all the required and optional fields in the yum.conf file.

To view the man page (which is installed with the ST Linux Distribution yum RPM), you may have to set your MANPATH environment variable.

For example, in BASH type:

host% export MANPATH="/opt/STM/STLinux-X.X/host/man:$MANPATH" 
host% man yum.conf

Using signatures with stmyum

If you have not previously used the ST Linux Distribution installer program, then it is a good idea to manually install the ST Linux public signature key. This is used to confirm that the RPMS are authentic ST Linux packages and is important as you will be installing RPMs as root on your system.

Note: You also need to do this if you get an error message complaining about the key length. This is because some older systems (notably RedHat Enterprise Linux 3) ship with a version of the GPG python bindings which cannot handle long strings. In this case you need to bypass yum, and use RPM directly:

host# rpm --import ftp://ftp.stlinux.com/pub/stlinux/X.X/ST_Linux_X.X/gpg_key

stmyum with proxies

To use yum with a proxy server, set the ftp_proxy or http_proxy environment variable. These are standard environment variables used by many programs which access the Internet; for example, wget and curl.

The choice of variable depends on the protocol used to connect to the STLinux server, as specified in the yum baseurl. This may be different from the protocol you use to connect to the proxy server.

For example, for a non-authenticated proxy server myproxy.com, which has HTTP access on port 1234 and using the BASH shell, type:

host# export ftp_proxy="http://myproxy.com:1234"

For authenticated proxies, the URL can be extended to include the username and password. For example, using the username myuser and password mypassword in the above example we would type (using CSH this time)

host# setenv ftp_proxy "http://myuser:mypassword@myproxy.com:1234"

Normally yum tries to keep a single connection open to the server, whether a proxy server is involved or not (this is called HTTP Keep-Alive). This is generally a performance optimization. However, it is possible that some proxy servers do not work correctly in this mode, which means that it is necessary to disable Keep-Alive. This is done by adding the line:

keepalive=0

either for a specific repository, or in the [main] section if you need to apply it to all servers.

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Using stmyum

stmyum can be used for:

• querying installed packages
• checking for new and updated packages
• removing existing packages

Examples of some of the most frequently used commands are shown below. Detailed information on the can be found in the man pages.

Note: For all of the examples below, "globs" (wildcards) can be used in the <package name>. This means that names such as stlinux20-st231-* are allowed.

By default, stmyum runs in interactive mode and asks you to confirm any actions that will actually change your system.

Note:This feature can be overridden with the -y option.

Common stmyum general commands

Common stmyum package commands

stmyum can perform operations based on single RPM packages in the ST Linux Distribution. Some useful commands are given below.

Common stmyum group commands

The packages within the STLinux distribution are arranged into groups (host tools, cross-development tools and different categories of target packages). stmyum has specific commands for working with a given group as a single entity, thereby avoiding the need to name each package within the group individually. The most useful group commands are given below.

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