One of the annoying things about Quattor is that you can't check that a package set defined in a profile is consistent, i.e. that it doesn't require any more packages added to resolve dependencies. This can result in a frustrating sequence of "tweak package list, deploy profiles, run SPMA, check for dependency errors". The problem is that dependency information is not available when compiling profiles.

However, there is a tool that's very good at resolving dependency problems, and it's called YUM. The following recipe gives details of using YUM and 

= Create YUM repositories =
You will need to turn your existing Quattor repositories into YUM repositories. Make sure that {{{createrepo}}} is installed on your repository server and then issue this command for every directory used as a target for a Quattor software repository:

{{{createrepo <repository root}}}

For example, to convert the repository {{{ca}}} rooted at {{{/var/www/html/ca}}} issue this command:

{{{createrepo /var/www/html/ca}}}

= Set up YUM on your development machine =
If YUM isn't installed, you will need to install it on the machine where you normally develop Quattor profiles. Note that that checkdeps.py has been tested with YUM version 3.2.8 (as used in Fedora 8).