Issue with elrepo-kernel: packages are not available

Question

I am having quite a problem with yum and elrepo. Let me start from the very beginning. There is a local machine with CentOS 7:

$ uname -a   
Linux vt001.localdomain 3.10.0-327.36.3.el7.xppsl_1.4.3.3482.x86_64 #1 SMP Fri Nov 18 10:03:11 UTC 2016 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

I want to update the kernel to current version (now 4.18.8). To do that I follow the instruction from https://server.etutsplus.com/centos-7-how-to-update-kernel-to-the-latest-mainline-stable/ (sorry, it is in Japanese, but google translate works fine, and I found instructions most detailed so far).

The main problem is that after installation of elrepo, yum doesn't see the packages related to the kernel:

$ yum list available --disablerepo='*' --enablerepo=elrepo-kernel   
Loaded plugins: fastestmirror, langpacks   
Loading mirror speeds from cached hostfile   
 * elrepo-kernel: ftp.ne.jp   
Available Packages   
perf.x86_64                            4.18.9-1.el7.elrepo          elrepo-kernel   
python-perf.x86_64                     4.18.9-1.el7.elrepo          elrepo-kernel   

As it can be seen, last two packages from repo are recognized, but all other packages are absent. I checked the very repo contents (by the link http://www.ftp.ne.jp/Linux/RPMS/elrepo/kernel/el7/x86_64/RPMS/) and it has a bunch of packages including kernel-ml which I am hunting for. Also I tried two other repos from the list (https://elrepo.org/tiki/Download), but always same result: only two last packages are available from elrepo-kernel repository. By the way, other elrepo brunches seems to be seen properly.

As the story goes, I decided to install kernel-ml directly from rpm. That was successful:

$ yum info kernel-ml   
Loaded plugins: fastestmirror, langpacks   
Loading mirror speeds from cached hostfile   
 * base: ftp.jaist.ac.jp   
 * elrepo: ftp.ne.jp   
 * extras: ftp.jaist.ac.jp   
 * updates: ftp.jaist.ac.jp   
Installed Packages   
Name        : kernel-ml   
Arch        : x86_64   
Version     : 4.18.8   
Release     : 1.el7.elrepo   
Size        : 203 M   
Repo        : installed   

I even can reboot with that kernel, but then I need to swap kernel-related packages: kernel-headers, kernel-tools, kernel-tools-libs and kernel-devel. The thing is that those packages are again in elrepo-kernel and I don't have access to them. Here I am a little afraid to do that manually because of lack of experience. I don't know, how to do that without yum swap, or how to use yum swap with local rpm packages (I have all them downloaded from the elrepo-kernel).

The funny thing is that I even tried to create my own local repo with createrepo having .rpm files in particular directory. When I wrote .repo file in /etc/yum.repos.d/ and added that repo to yum, it states something strange for me in repolist:

$ yum repolist   
...   
repo id         repo name                          status   
...   
!my-kernel2     Downloaded kernel rpms                2+7   

I wonder, what does (2+7) mean? Because again if I want to see available packages, only two are present:

$ yum list available --disablerepo='*' —enablerepo=my-kernel2   
Loaded plugins: fastestmirror, langpacks   
Loading mirror speeds from cached hostfile   
Error: No matching Packages to list   

or

$ sudo yum repo-pkgs my-kernel2 list   
...   
Available Packages   
perf.x86_64                            4.18.8-1.el7.elrepo          my-kernel2   
python-perf.x86_64                     4.18.8-1.el7.elrepo          my-kernel2   

While I have this in the RPMS forlder in my-kernel2 repo:

$ ls -l RPMS/   
total 69776   
-rw-r--r-- 1 ivan ivan  46M Sep 25 12:22 kernel-ml-4.18.8-1.el7.elrepo.x86_64.rpm   
-rw-r--r-- 1 ivan ivan  12M Sep 25 12:22 kernel-ml-devel-4.18.8-1.el7.elrepo.x86_64.rpm   
-rw-r--r-- 1 ivan ivan 7.4M Sep 25 12:22 kernel-ml-doc-4.18.8-1.el7.elrepo.noarch.rpm   
-rw-r--r-- 1 ivan ivan 1.3M Sep 25 12:22 kernel-ml-headers-4.18.8-1.el7.elrepo.x86_64.rpm   
-rw-r--r-- 1 ivan ivan 164K Sep 25 12:22 kernel-ml-tools-4.18.8-1.el7.elrepo.x86_64.rpm   
-rw-r--r-- 1 ivan ivan  66K Sep 25 12:22 kernel-ml-tools-libs-4.18.8-1.el7.elrepo.x86_64.rpm   
-rw-r--r-- 1 ivan ivan  47K Sep 25 12:22 kernel-ml-tools-libs-devel-4.18.8-1.el7.elrepo.x86_64.rpm   
-rw-r--r-- 1 ivan ivan 1.9M Sep 25 12:22 perf-4.18.8-1.el7.elrepo.x86_64.rpm   
-rw-r--r-- 1 ivan ivan 481K Sep 25 12:22 python-perf-4.18.8-1.el7.elrepo.x86_64.rpm   

So, I am completely lost. Basically, I can produce two questions:

1. Can I use yum swap with local .rpm files?
2. What is that mystery with packages that are in the repo but are not seen by yum???

EDIT

Thanks to the comments and answer by GracefulRestart, I found excluded packages in yum.config:

exclude=kernel* centos* ibutils-libs*

I don't know how (on Earth) that line appeared in the config, but without it yum sees all that I need.

Answer 1

Two quick comments about YUM repositories then I will attempt to answer your two main questions:

Make sure you update your local repository whenever you add more packages to it.

Also, check your /etc/yum.conf to see if you are excluding any packages.

As for your actual questions:

YUM should be able to work with any local RPM files, just make sure you use the proper path (i.e. yum install ./RPMS/kernel-ml-*.rpm).

I believe the mystery of phantom packages as well as your mysterious 2+7 status is related to excluded packages (i.e. YUM found two packages which it displayed to you, and there were seven hidden packages that matched your query but were excluded for whatever reason).