How to share a local repository using NFS ?

Environment

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL 9/8/7)
• NFS
• Local RPM repository

Issue

• How to share a local repository using NFS ?

Resolution

On yum repository server

• NOTE : Make sure repositories or packages are downloaded using DVD or reposync for RHEL 7 and RHEL 8 and 9 respectively.

• Make sure that nfs-utils package is installed.

  # yum install nfs-utils
  

• Start and enable nfs-server service

  # systemctl enable nfs-server
  # systemctl start nfs-server
  

• Export the directory to the required clients :-

     # vi /etc/exports
     /<some>  <IP range>/<netmask>(permissions)
  
     *Example*
  
     # vi  /etc/exports
     /data  172.25.0.0/16(ro)
  

On the client systems

• Create a mount point to mount the shared directory.

• Temporary usage

  Mount the shared directory

  # mount -t nfs <IP of repo server>:/<some>  <mount point>
  

  NOTE: Once the system reboots, <mount point> will be unmounted automatically.

• Permanent usage

  1. Add the entry in /etc/fstab file

      # vi /etc/fstab
      <IP of repo server>:/<some>  <mount point> nfs defaults 0 0 
      :wq!
  
      # mount <mount point>
  

  2. Create a repository file under /etc/yum.repos.d/ pointing to the shared directory

  # cat /etc/yum.repos.d/shared.repo
  [RHEL-NFS]
  name=Red Hat Enterprise Linux $releasever - $basearch
  baseurl=file:///<mount point>/
  enabled=1
  gpgcheck=1 
  gpgkey=file:///etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-redhat-release
  

  NOTE:

  • Replace ip_address to NFS server's IP address.
  • For RHEL 8 and later, BaseOS and AppStream repositories should be created separately with respective baseurls of each repo directory on NFS Server.

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