How to apply updates to a system with no Internet access?

[Richard Shaw]

On Thu, May 31, 2012 at 10:48 AM, Peter Butler <PButler at pt.com> wrote:
> Jens, RIchard
>
> Thanks for the info - much appreciated.
>
> Is there any way to download all the required updates (on a machine that
> has Internet access, obviously) and save these downloads for the creation
> of the local repository you speak of?  Let me clarify.  The target system
> (with no Internet access) is in a customer site.  The development system,
> which essentially 'mirrors' the target installation, is in our own lab and
> *does* have Internet access.  So for us to update our (development) system
> is straightforward, and this system automatically 'knows' which updates to
> download as part of FC16's package update software.  Since this system
> mirrors the target one, what would be ideal is for it to not just
> automatically install the updates, but merely download them as a first
> step - such that they can then be copied to a local repository that I will
> create.  Then I can use this repository to update the development system
> as well as the target system.  In other words, if the development system
> can be used to automatically download but *not* install the updates, it
> saves me the trouble of having to 'manually' determine which updates are
> required for the systems.

I think the answer to that is "kinda". Let me explain.

It will likely be difficult to keep the packages perfectly in sync,
but a brute force approach would be to use the yum downloadonly
plugin. The would download the update RPM's without actually
installing them, then you could copy those to an external drive or
thumb drive, then run yum update again to let the transaction
complete.

The problem would be if you forgot to add the --download-only (or
whatever it's called) option EVERY time your did a yum update on the
development box.

There might be (and probably is) a more elegant solution but that's
all I can think of.

Richard