Howto: Install yum On RHEL 4

Written by Rai
Posted January 3, 2008 at 12:25 am

There are more than a couple of ways of updating Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) packages on your machine. One is by using up2date, the default package updater of RHEL systems. Unlike Fedora and CentOS which uses yum, up2date requires you to be registered to Red Hat Network (RHN) to be able to download or update your packages from the RHN repository.

Now, what if you need to install a certain package that is not available in your current repository by up2date? Or what if the package in the repository wreaks havoc in your system? Maybe you should try using yum to install or update rpm packages.

But… but… but how can I install yum in my RHEL machine?, you may ask. It’s actually very simple.

I got this tip from Babar Haq’s Blog with a little modification since I am using RHEL 4.

1. Download yum by using wget

# wget http://linux.duke.edu/projects/yum/download/2.0/yum-2.0.8-1.noarch.rpm

2. Install the rpm

# rpm -ivh yum-2.0.8-1.noarch.rpm

3. Configure /etc/yum.conf to use compatible repository

[main]
cachedir=/var/cache/yum
debuglevel=2
logfile=/var/log/yum.log
pkgpolicy=newest
distroverpkg=redhat-release
tolerant=1
exactarch=1

[base]
name=CentOS-$releasever - Base
baseurl=http://mirror.centos.org/centos/4/os/i386/
gpgcheck=1

[updates]
name=Red Hat Linux $releasever - Updates
baseurl=http://mirror.centos.org/centos/4/updates/i386/
gpgcheck=1

4. Download and install the CentOS GPG Key

# wget http://mirror.centos.org/centos/RPM-GPG-KEY-CentOS-4

# rpm –import RPM-GPG-KEY-CentOS-4

5. Test yum to see if it works (I tested by running full update on my machine)

# yum update

*Note: This will update ALL installed packages in your machine. If you do not want to do this, cancel the process or skip this step.

If you reach step 5 without encountering any errors, it means that yum is successfully updating your machine with the latest versions available in the repo.

This worked perfectly fine for me. If you experienced any errors, post a message and I will try to help you out

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Filed under: How-To's, Linux, Tips, Troubleshooting

9 Responses to this post

A tip on how to install yum in RHEL 4 on January 5th, 2008 2:35 am

[...] has a guide on installing YUM on RHEL4. She got the idea from a blog entry about installing yum in [...]
Nata on February 12th, 2008 5:05 am

If it worked in 2006, it doesn’t in 2008.
Options, paths to release repositories changed and the commands have to be modified.
I’m using rhel 4.2 on VmWare since I can’t get a lab machine from my admin to upgrade to rhel 5.0, which is required for evaluating new packages. I installed yum2.0.8 but it does not see the new package repo using yum list.
Ryan on September 3rd, 2008 2:01 am

Thanks for the guide. I was having trouble finding a good updated guide to installing YUM on RHEL4. This worked perfectly for me the first time.

Good work.

Ryan’s last blog post is New Update To An Old Plugin
stovie on September 17th, 2008 6:40 am

Thanks! I ran through your instructions and they worked perfectly on RHEL4.
nathan on September 18th, 2008 9:16 pm

Thanks so much, worked great first time no problems!
iwahd on September 24th, 2008 2:06 pm

Worked perfect on RHEL4.7. thanks
TASSEMBEDO Ismahil on October 21st, 2008 12:18 am

This worked perfectly fine for me too.
Thanks for your Howto!
bipper on November 7th, 2008 8:43 pm

http://yum.baseurl.org/download/2.0/yum-2.0.8.tar.gz

I did wget http://yum.baseurl.org/download/2.0/yum-2.0.8.tar.gz instead. It seems the non archived files were removed, killing your link.
dragonlair on December 25th, 2008 7:10 pm

thanks for the trick. its super.

for bipper in #8, you can use the yum rpm and the dependencies in http://www.freevps.com/download/yum/RHEL4/
it works for me.