8.4.5. Adding, Enabling, and Disabling a Yum Repository

Section 8.4.2, “Setting [repository] Options” described various options you can use to define a Yum repository. This section explains how to add, enable, and disable a repository by using the yum-config-manager command.

Important

When the system is registered with the certificate-based Red Hat Network, the Red Hat Subscription Manager tools are used to manage repositories in the /etc/yum.repos.d/redhat.repo file. See Chapter 6, Registering the System and Managing Subscriptions for more information how to register a system with Red Hat Network and use the Red Hat Subscription Manager tools to manage subscriptions.

Adding a Yum Repository

To define a new repository, you can either add a [repository] section to the /etc/yum.conf file, or to a .repo file in the /etc/yum.repos.d/ directory. All files with the .repo file extension in this directory are read by yum, and it is recommended to define your repositories here instead of in /etc/yum.conf.

Warning

Obtaining and installing software packages from unverified or untrusted software sources other than Red Hat Network constitutes a potential security risk, and could lead to security, stability, compatibility, and maintainability issues.
Yum repositories commonly provide their own .repo file. To add such a repository to your system and enable it, run the following command as root: 
yum-config-manager --add-repo repository_url
…where repository_url is a link to the .repo file. For example, to add a repository located at http://www.example.com/example.repo, type the following at a shell prompt: 
~]# yum-config-manager --add-repo http://www.example.com/example.repo
Loaded plugins: product-id, refresh-packagekit, subscription-manager
adding repo from: http://www.example.com/example.repo
grabbing file http://www.example.com/example.repo to /etc/yum.repos.d/example.repo
example.repo                                             |  413 B     00:00
repo saved to /etc/yum.repos.d/example.repo

Enabling a Yum Repository

To enable a particular repository or repositories, type the following at a shell prompt as root: 
yum-config-manager --enable repository…
…where repository is the unique repository ID (use yum repolist all to list available repository IDs). Alternatively, you can use a glob expression to enable all matching repositories: 
yum-config-manager --enable glob_expression…
For example, to enable repositories defined in the [example], [example-debuginfo], and [example-source]sections, type: 
~]# yum-config-manager --enable example\*
Loaded plugins: product-id, refresh-packagekit, subscription-manager
============================== repo: example ==============================
[example]
bandwidth = 0
base_persistdir = /var/lib/yum/repos/x86_64/6Server
baseurl = http://www.example.com/repo/6Server/x86_64/
cache = 0
cachedir = /var/cache/yum/x86_64/6Server/example
[output truncated]
When successful, the yum-config-manager --enable command displays the current repository configuration.

Disabling a Yum Repository

To disable a Yum repository, run the following command as root: 
yum-config-manager --disable repository…
…where repository is the unique repository ID (use yum repolist all to list available repository IDs). Similarly to yum-config-manager --enable, you can use a glob expression to disable all matching repositories at the same time: 
yum-config-manager --disable glob_expression…
When successful, the yum-config-manager --disable command displays the current configuration.