Setup yum repository for update/install from ISO image

After the RHEL5 installation without the registration key, it is not possible to get repository updates/setup as system is not registered with RHN (Red Hat Network). However, yum repository can be setup using the local RHEL ISO image in following steps:

1. Create directory for mounting

  $ mkdir -p /cdrom/iso

2. Mount the iso at the loopback device

  $ mount -o loop </path/to/iso-file> /cdrom/iso

3. Create a repository using the the mounted directory

  $ cd /cdrom

  $ createrepo .

  $ yum clean all

4. Create a yum repo file

  $ cat /etc/yum.repos.d/file.repo

     [RHEL]

     baseurl=file:///cdrom/

     enabled=1

     gpgcheck=0

Troubleshoot:

  * If createrepo package is not installed, find it into the mounted directory & and install first

   $ find /cdrom/iso/ -name "*createrepo*"

   $ rpm -ivh /cdrom/iso/Server/createrepo*.rpm 


Mounting permanently:
To mount /cdrom/iso permanently, a entry need to made in /etc/fstab
/iso-name /cdrom/iso iso9660 ro,loop 0 0

PHP Class for Array to XML Conversion


/**
* Array To XML conversion in PHP
*/
class Array2XML extends DomDocument{
    public $nodeName;
    private $xpath;
    private $root;
    private $node_name;
  
    /**
    * Constructor
    *
    * Set up the DOM environment
    *
    * @param    string    $root        The name of the root node
    * @param    string    $nod_name    The name numeric keys are called
    *
    */
    public function __construct($root = 'tests', $node_name = 'test') {
        parent::__construct();
      
        $this->encoding = "ISO-8859-1"; // set the encoding
        $this->formatOutput = true;     // format the output
        $this->node_name = $node_name;  // set the node names
        $this->root = $this->appendChild($this->createElement( $root )); // create the root element
        $this->xpath = new DomXPath($this);
        //$this->strictErrorChecking = false;
    }
  
    /*
    * creates the XML representation of the array
    *
    * @param    array    $arr    The array to convert
    * @aparam    string    $node    The name given to child nodes when recursing
    *
    */
    public function createNode($arr, $node = null) {
        if (is_null($node)) {
            $node = $this->root;
        }

        foreach($arr as $element => $value)  {
            $element = is_numeric($element) ? $this->node_name : $element;
          
            //$value = preg_replace('/[^a-z]/i', '', $value); // $value = htmlentities($value);
            $child = $this->createElement($element, (is_array($value) ? null : $value));
            $node->appendChild($child);

            if (is_array($value)) {
                self::createNode($value, $child);
            }
        }
    }
  
    /*
    * Return the generated XML as a string
    *
    * @return    string
    */
    public function __toString() {
        return $this->saveXML();
    }

    /*
    * Array2XML::query() - perform an XPath query on the XML representation of the array
    * @param str $query - query to perform
    * @return mixed
    */
    public function query($query) {
        return $this->xpath->evaluate($query);
    }
} // Class ends

// Example Use

try  {
      $xml = new Array2XML('list');
      $xml->createNode( $dataArr );
      $dataStr = $xml;
}
catch (Exception $e) {
      echo $e->getMessage();
}