Shipping packages from a local repo

If you create a local repository within your cluster directory, TPA will make any packages in the repository available to cluster instances. This is an easy way to ship extra packages to your cluster.

Optionally, you can also instruct TPA to configure the instances to use only this repository, i.e., disable all others. In this case, you must provide all packages required during the deployment, starting from basic dependencies like rsync, Python, and so on.

Quickstart

To configure a cluster with a local repo enabled, run:

tpaexec configure --enable-local-repo …

This will generate your cluster configuration and create a local-repo directory and OS-specific subdirectories. See below for details of the recommended layout .

Disconnected environments

See instructions for managing clusters in an Managing clusters in a disconnected or Air-Gapped environment

environment.

Local repo layout

By default, TPA will create a local-repo directory and OS-specific subdirectories within it (e.g., local-repo/Debian/10 ), based on the OS you select for the cluster. We recommend using separate subdirectories because it makes it easier to accommodate instances running different distributions.

For example, a cluster running RedHat 8 might have the following layout:

local-repo/
`-- RedHat
    |-- 8.5 -> 8
    `-- 8
        `-- repodata

For each instance, TPA will look for the following subdirectories of local-repo in order and use the first one it finds:

  • <distribution>/<version> , e.g., RedHat/8.5

  • <distribution>/<major version> , e.g., RedHat/8

  • <distribution>/<release name> , e.g., Ubuntu/focal

  • <distribution> , e.g., Debian

  • The local-repo directory itself.

If none of these directories exists, of course, TPA will not try to set up any local repo on target instances.

This way, you can put RedHat-specific packages under RedHat/8 and Ubuntu-specific packages under Ubuntu/focal , and instances will use the right packages automatically. If you don’t have instances running different distributions, they’ll all use the same subdirectory.

Populating the repository

Run tpaexec download-packages to download all the packages required by a cluster into the local-repo.

You must copy packages into the appropriate repository directory and generate repository metadata before running tpaexec deploy .

After copying the necessary packages into the repository directory, you must use an OS-specific tool to generate the repository metadata.

You must generate the metadata on the control node, i.e., the machine where you run tpaexec. TPA will copy the metadata and packages to target instances.

You must generate the metadata in the subdirectory that the instance will use, i.e., if you copy packages into local-repo/Debian/10 , you must create the metadata in that directory, not in local-repo/Debian .

Debian/Ubuntu repository metadata

For Debian-based distributions, install the dpkg-dev package:

$ sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install -y dpkg-dev

Now you can use dpkg-scanpackages to generate the metadata:

$ cd local-repo/Debian/buster
#  download/copy .deb package files

$ dpkg-scanpackages . | gzip > Packages.gz

RedHat repository metadata

First, install the createrepo package:

$ sudo yum install -y createrepo

Now you can use createrepo to generate the metadata:

$ cd local-repo/RedHat/8
#  download/copy .rpm package files

$ createrepo .

Copying the repository

TPA will use rsync to copy the contents of the repository directory, including the generated metadata, to a directory on target instances.

If rsync is not already available on an instance, TPA can install it (i.e., apt-get install rsync or yum install rsync ). However, if you have set use_local_repo_only , the rsync package must be included in the local repo. If required, TPA will copy just the rsync package using scp and install it before copying the rest.

Repository configuration

After copying the contents of the local repo to target instances, TPA will configure the destination directory as a local (i.e., path-based, rather than URL-based) repository.

The idea is that if you provide, say, example.deb in the repository directory, running apt-get install example will suffice to install it, just like any package in any other repository.

Package installation

TPA configures a repository with the contents that you provide, but if the same package is available from different repositories, it is up to the package manager to decide which one to install (usually the latest, unless you specify a particular version).

(However, if you set use_local_repo_only: yes , TPA will disable all other package repositories, so that instances can only use the packages that you provide in local-repo .)