Infrastructure Software

I am trying to figure out if I can make use of YUM for my Oracle Linux 6 install. I have never used YUM so it is a bit new to me

Q1. My first question is – if my server has no Web access ( even via proxy ) is it possible / worthwhile even trying to config or use YUM ? Should I instead just do all re-requisite package loading via RPM ( after I have manually transferred the required packages onto the server ) ?

Q2. My intention is to install 11gR2 on OL 6 server. I have check out Oracle’s Public YUM Repository ( http://public-yum.oracle.com ). However I guess this is only useful if you are using YUM to directly download and apply the required linux packages. If as in my case I am on a server with no direct / proxy access to the web then I presume I simply have to go to a server that does have web access, search / download any required packages and then manually transfer them across to my database server ?

I suppose the alternative is to retrieve any required packages from the source Linux DVD’s (if I have them ) ?

Q3. Is it possible to have YUM simply download required packages without applying them – I am thinking if it is possible to use YUM on another staging server simply to get the packages and then move them across to my database server. However I am not sure that makes sense because I assume YUM will look for the dependent packages NOT installed on the current server i.e. the staging server ( as opposed to my target database server ) ? Therefore it is comparing the install state of the current staging server

Q4. Thinking outside of the box - is it possible to configure YUM to use a local disk mount point / directory as its repository, instead of remote repository via a base URL ? i.e. could I have /etc/yum.repos.d/local.repo and populate it with something like

[Install_Local_Disk]
name=Local Disk Repository
baseurl=file:///u01/yum_repos
gpgcheck=0
enabled = 1
skip_if_unavailable=True

thanks,
Jim