4. The Software Media Manager

This part of Rpmdrake is dedicated to the configuration of the package media repositories. As you can see in Figure 13.5, “The “Software Media Manager”” there are some media configured: “Main”, “Contrib”, etc. With this tool you can add other software media: a CD from a magazine containing RPMs, a Web repository, etc.

Figure 13.5. The “Software Media Manager

The Software Media Manager

The check boxes in the left-hand columns allow you to flag the repositories:

Enabled?

Uncheck this box to temporarily disable the corresponding medium. The packages contained in this medium will not be available for installation until you enable the medium again.

Updates?

This box must be checked for update media, that is, media that contains updates of packages that are already in another medium, albeit with an older version number. Thus only update media are taken into account when looking for updates.

Various buttons allow you to perform actions on the selected media.

Remove

Allows you to remove a medium which you no longer use. Simply select the medium to be removed in the list and click this button.

Edit

Here you may change the URL or the relative path to the synthesis/hdlist (if you do not know what we are talking about it is wise to leave this window via Cancel instead of Save changes).

In case you need to pass through a specific proxy to access this medium, you can configure it here by clicking on the Proxy... button. Note that you can also define a global proxy for all remote media through the Proxy... button of the main interface.

This option also allows you to change from using hdlist files to synthesis files, which are much smaller but with less information on packages. Synthesized files only have information about package names, their dependencies and a short summary, you won't be able to search for files inside uninstalled packages, for example, and you won't be able to see the full description for a package if you click on its name.

Add...

Use this button to add to your system all publicly available official package sources from Internet repositories. This is useful for example if you have a fast Internet connection or only have the first installation CD at hand. Choose a mirror geographically near to your location.

After choosing a mirror and clicking Ok, package information for the source you chose is downloaded and all included packages will be available for you to install and update your system.

Add custom

This button provides access to a new dialog, in which you may reference a new software package medium.

Figure 13.6. Rpmdrake — adding Media

Rpmdrake — adding Media
Update...

You are here shown a list of already defined data media. You can choose the ones where you want to update the list of available packages in it. This is useful for remote media to which new packages are being added. Just start the process by clicking on Update.

Manage keys...

It is important that any new packages you install are authenticated. To do so, each package can be electronically signed with a “key”, and you can allow/disallow keys on a per-medium basis. On Figure 13.7, “Rpmdrake — managing keys”, you can see that Mandriva Linux key is allowed for medium “Installation CD”. Click on Add a key... to allow another key for the selected medium (beware, do this with care, as with all security-related questions), and on Remove key to remove a key from the selected medium.

Figure 13.7. Rpmdrake — managing keys

Rpmdrake — managing keys
Proxy...

If you are sitting behind a firewall and you still need to access remote media (especially for package updates), you can do so if you have a proxy server which leads to the Internet (at least in an area where you can find a package server). Normally it should be enough to fill in the Proxy hostname to get it working (Figure 13.8, “Rpmdrake — configuring a proxy”). If you need a user / password combination to get through the proxy, you can also specify these here. Just confirm your changes by clicking on OK and you are done.

Figure 13.8. Rpmdrake — configuring a proxy

Rpmdrake — configuring a proxy
Parallel...

If you are running a large network of computers, you may want to install a package on all the computers in parallel; this button opens a dialog window allowing the configuration of the “Parallel” mode. As it is rather complicated and only useful to a limited group of people, this short introduction will not give more details about it.

Global options...

This button allows you to configure the program used to download new packages and if the source should be checked against a given key. These choices are used on all installed sources.

Up and Down arrows

These buttons allow changing the order that sources will be used when installing a package.

[Note]For advanced users

Rpmdrake processes the urpmi configuration file (/etc/urpmi/urpmi.cfg) from top to bottom to obtain a list of medium repositories and the packages that each contains.

If a given package appears in more than one medium, and versions differ, then the one with the newest version will be used, ignoring the rest.

When a package with the same version appears in more than one medium, only the one appearing first will be used, the rest will be ignored.

Either way, you won't miss available packages, the newest one appearing first is the one that will be used.