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: “Installation CD”, “Contrib CD”, etc. With this tool you can add other software media: a CD from a magazine containing RPMs, a Web repository, etc. The check boxes in the left column allow you to temporarily disable a medium: when unchecked, the associated packages will not be taken into account for installation or upgrades.

Figure 13.5. The “Software Media Manager

The Software Media Manager

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 will be wise to leave this window via Cancel instead of Save changes).

In case you need to pass through a specific proxy to access this media, 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. Synthesis files only have information about package names, their dependencies and 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.

Figure 13.6. Rpmdrake — adding a new source

Rpmdrake — adding a new source

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

Add custom...

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

Figure 13.7. Rpmdrake — adding a Media

Rpmdrake — adding a Media
Update...

You will be 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 13.8, “Rpmdrake — managing keys”, you can see that Mandrakelinux 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 13.8. Rpmdrake — managing keys

Rpmdrake — managing keys
Proxy...

If you are sitting behind a firewall and you still need to access remote media (notably 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 13.9, “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 13.9. 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 will open 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]Note

Rpmdrake processes your urpmi.cfg file from top to bottom to obtain a list of medium repositories and the packages that each contains.

When a later medium repository contains some packages also contained in an earlier repository, the packages appear only under the later repository. If the later repository contains all the packages from an earlier repository, the earlier repository is not shown at all.

Thus, if your urpmi.cfg file has five data media repositories, Rpmdrake may show you only the last one if the last one contains all the packages contained in the previous four. Re-arranging the order of the media in the urpmi.cfg file may result in a very different selection of media repositories being shown by Rpmdrake, even though the same packages are available.

Either way, you won't miss available packages, you just won't see the repositories listed.

As you have seen on our short trip through Rpmdrake, it is easy to manage your own system, to add new applications or to remove something if you need more space on disk.