Yum Configuration in Redhat Linux

What's Yum in Linux ? How to Configure Yum in Redhat Linux 8 ? Few Yum Commands!

Introduction

Yum is used to manage software packages in Redhat Linux. We can install, list, upgrade and remove software packages in Redhat Linux. Rpm could also be used to install software packages however the advantage of using yum is that yum knows how to resolve dependencies.

Before we could use yum to install softwares, we need to configure yum i.e we need to tell yum where are the software repositories or where the software is located. The software repositories could be either online or in the local drive.

Configuring Yum

The Redhat iso file or dvd file contains many software packages. And it is located in /dev/cdrom. Mount it on a folder.

mkdir /dvd
mount /dev/cdrom /dvd

Once mount is done, you would be able to see appstream and BaseOS

We need to create a ".repo" file inside folder /etc/yum.repos.d/. We could create multiple repos which will contain online or local location of the software packages.

The filename could be anything but must end with ".repo".

vi /etc/yum.repos.d/dvd.repo

dvd.repo contents

[dvd1]
baseurl=file:///dvd/AppStream
gpcheck=0

[dvd2]
baseurl=file:///dvd/BaseOS
gpcheck=0

Use Esc+:x to save file and quit from vi editor.

Check if yum is configured correctly using yum repolist command.

Installing packages using yum install command (here we have installed net-tools and vim package)

yum install net-tools vim