Package Search Procedure

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):
    • # yum --assumeno install <all package names> | utils/yumtopklist - (note final hyphen).
• 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).