12.4.1. [main] Options

12.4.1. [main] Options

The [main] section is mandatory, and there must only be one. For a complete list of options you can use in the [main] section, refer to man yum.conf.

The following is a list of the most commonly-used options in the [main] section.

cachedir

This option specifies the directory where yum should store its cache and database files. By default, the cache directory of yum is /var/cache/yum.

keepcache=<1 or 0>

Setting keepcache=1 instructs yum to keep the cache of headers and packages after a successful installation. keepcache=1 is the default.

reposdir=<absolute path to directory of .repo files>

This option allows you to specify a directory where .repo files are located. .repo files contain repository information (similar to the [repository] section of /etc/yum.conf).

yum collects all repository information from .repo files and the [repository] section of the /etc/yum.conf file to create a master list of repositories to use for each transaction. Refer to Section 12.4.2, “[repository] Options” for more information about options you can use for both the [repository] section and .repo files.

If reposdir is not set, yum uses the default directory /etc/yum.repos.d.

gpgcheck=<1 or 0>

This disables/enables GPG signature checking on packages on all repositories, including local package installation. The default is gpgcheck=0, which disables GPG checking.

If this option is set in the [main] section of the /etc/yum.conf file, it sets the GPG checking rule for all repositories. However, you can also set this on individual repositories instead; i.e., you can enable GPG checking on one repository while disabling it on another.

assumeyes=<1 or 0>

This determines whether or not yum should prompt for confirmation of critical actions. The default if assumeyes=0, which means yum will prompt you for confirmation.

If assumeyes=1 is set, yum behaves in the same way that the command line option -y does.

tolerant=<1 or 0>

When enabled (tolerant=1), yum will be tolerant of errors on the command line with regard to packages. This is similar to the yum command line option -t.

The default value for this is tolerant=0 (not tolerant).

exclude=<package name/s>

This option allows you to exclude packages by keyword during installation/updates. If you are specifying multiple packages, this is a space-delimited list. Shell globs using wildcards (for example, * and ?) are allowed.

retries=<number of retries>

This sets the number of times yum should attempt to retrieve a file before returning an error. Setting this to 0 makes yum retry forever. The default value is 6.


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