Linux software via yum-centosplugin.py

Content Authoring
1

I have a need to deploy java to some CentOS and RHEL servers. I’m doing linux patching on some endpoints in BES and thought doing a new install of a package via the yum-centosplugin should be doable.

Has anyone done this?

1 Like
2

So you’d be installing Java through Yum? That should be possible, assuming it is possible on the command line normally.

What is yum-centosplugin ? is that something BigFix provides or something CentOS provides? Can you provide links?

This isn’t Yum, but the same principle, an example fixlet where I’m installing something using apt-get on Debian/Ubuntu: https://github.com/jgstew/bigfix-content/blob/master/fixlet/install%20ldap-utils%20-%20Debian_Ubuntu.bes

I also have examples where I’m adding a new repo to the package manager first:

One thing you’ll notice is that I’m telling apt-get to update it’s package info after adding a repo, but I’m only doing the same before an install if the last time it has been done is more than an hour ago. This way if I have 20 fixlets in a row that all install packages, they will only tell Apt-Get to update package info 1 time:

if { not exists absolute values whose(it < 1 * hour) of (now - it) of maxima of modification times of files "/var/lib/apt/periodic/update-success-stamp" }
  wait bash -c "apt-get update"
endif

The same applies to Yum, though the commands and files are not exactly the same.

3

yum-centosplugin.py uses yum to do patch. It list dependencies on package and then downloads he packages via the normal BES download process and then runs yum to do the install with the downloaded files (from my understanding in a nutshell)

I can’t do a straight up “yum install java” or equivalent. It would have to be the same type of content used in the “Patches for CentOS6 Plugin R2” site.

4

If you craft your custom Fixlets such that it follows the same actionscript format as the regular CentOS Fixlets, then it should work. Of course, you’ll need to modify the actionscript such that it will grab the files from the Patches for CentOS site (such as yum-centosplugin.py) or you copy those files onto your own custom site.

But be aware that the download plugin looks at specific locations, so if the package you’re trying to install doesn’t exist in those location, you’ll need to configure it. See this doc for more details.