How to use ACS Open Source Package Management to Clone the IBM i Open Source Repository and Share it with other Systems

Steps

• Choose one of the IBM i environments to host the offline repository and connect to that system with IBM i ACS Open Source Package Management to create a local clone of the IBM i Open Source repository on that IBM i IFS
• From Open Source Package Management under the Tools menu select “Clone Repo for Offline Use…”
  
   
• All supported releases of IBM i use the same IBM i r7.3 base repository, so that is what we will want to clone. Choose the option to “Specify a location:” for “Source Repository” and enter in the following URL
  • https://public.dhe.ibm.com/software/ibmi/products/pase/rpms/repo-base-7.3/
    
     
• Modify the Destination (IFS) parameter to something meaningful
  • This example is adding “base_73” in reference to the repository folder that is being cloned
  • Leave the option for “Clear repository before download (recommended)” checked
    
     
• Select the following Additional Operations:
  • Configure package manager to use this cloned repository
    • Allows this IBM i environment to use the local repository
  • Allow package manager to skip repositories that may require Internet access
    • Allows this local repository to continue being used if the IBM i environment cannot connect to the Internet
  • Optional - Create nginx configuration files for serving the cloned repository to other IBM i Systems
    • In order to have other IBM i environments use this offline repository it needs to be shared via an HTTP server instance.  This will create a Open Source nginx HTTP server instance specifically configured for this local repository
    • More information on this can be found here:
      • https://ibmi-oss-docs.readthedocs.io/en/latest/acscloner/README.html#serving-up-your-internal-repo-via-nginx-using-acs
    • If this option isn’t selected other HTTP Server instances, including the IBM i HTTP powered by Apache, could be configured to allow HTTP connections to access /QOpenSys/QIBM/UserData/rep_repos/base_73
      
       
• Select the button for “Clone Repository” to create the local repository from the Internet source repository.
  • This will likely take a long time to complete as over 300 individual RPM packages are copied local
    
     
• To update this local repository with what is currently available on the IBM provided Internet repository, repeat this process, but with all of the “Additional Operations” unchecked
  
   
• Now that there is a local copy of the IBM i repository on this IBM i, other IBM i environments need to be configured to access this repository.
  • IBM i Open Source repository sources are defined by .repo files in the path:
    • /QOpenSys/etc/yum/repos.d
  • Go to that path and create a file of a name like “clone-base-73” and have it look like this:
    
    ***********Beginning of Data***********
    [clone-base-73]
    name=Clone Base 73
    baseurl=http://5.5.5.5:2055
    enabled=1
    gpgcheck=0
    sslverify=0
    skip_if_unavailable=1
    ***********End of Data***********
     
    • The "baseurl" line needs to point to the HTTP server environment that is sharing the local repository that was created above