This page roughly describes the procedure for computing staff (including frontline support) for adding packages to the DICE environment. This should form part of the RequestedSoftwareQueue procedure as a first-pass.
On SL7
While the pkgsearch service remains SL6-only frontline support can still search our repositories using a machine fully-configured to use yum: most Computing Desktops fulfil this requirement.
From a yum capable machine, you can use yum search <term> to find packages. It is important to run all yum commands as root to avoid confusion - running yum search as yourself may use invalid cached data from your home directory.
Then, to get the resources required to install these packages:
From your yum-configured CO desktop, as root, run:
yum install <package> (just to check things interactively). Press N at the Y/N prompt.
If you're happy with the result (if you see hundreds of dependencies, something has probably gone wrong) re-run the command, piped into the resource generating script (found in the CO utils area):
Paste the output of the command into the user's profile; the log in to the machine and run om updaterpms run.
Assuming all is well:
Tag the profile with a REMINDER for RAT, including RT, etc., e.g.:
!profile.packages mEXTRA(
foo-bar-0.1/noarch
foo-barre-9.9.9-inf
[...etc, as provided by yumtoupdaterpms]
) /* REMINDER: RAT unit please review this for blah blah blah - RTxxxxx */
Tagging the profile in this way allows the RAT unit to periodically review these profiles and optionally collate relevant software into an appropriate package list.
Servers
Running yum on a desktop won't necessarily provide a full dependency list suitable for use on servers as they may be missing graphical dependencies. But it's safe enough to try -- just make sure that updaterpms runs correctly on the server once you've added the package list — and if not, contact RAT unit for advice (we normally have a minimal server configured for yum dependency checks).