This article is specific to CentOS, however the packages required for yum here are the same on other flavors
The below scripts installs all packages upon which yum depends for a 386 distro (Need separate 64 bit instructions)
Please note - that the version numbers of the packages WILL change as later releases come out, it is up to you to ensure that the packages used are the latest. If you find a package in this script has become deprecated, please update this page with the latest package so others do not have to search for it as well.
CentOS 4
rpm -Uvh http://mirror.centos.org/centos-4/4/os/i386/CentOS/RPMS/gmp-4.1.4-3.i386.rpm
rpm -Uvh http://mirror.centos.org/centos-4/4/os/i386/CentOS/RPMS/readline-4.3-13.i386.rpm
rpm -Uvh http://mirror.centos.org/centos-4/4/os/i386/CentOS/RPMS/python-2.3.4-14.4.i386.rpm
rpm -Uvh http://mirror.centos.org/centos-4/4/os/i386/CentOS/RPMS/libxml2-2.6.16-10.i386.rpm
rpm -Uvh http://mirror.centos.org/centos-4/4/os/i386/CentOS/RPMS/libxml2-python-2.6.16-10.i386.rpm
rpm -Uvh http://mirror.centos.org/centos-4/4/os/i386/CentOS/RPMS/expat-1.95.7-4.i386.rpm
rpm -Uvh http://mirror.centos.org/centos-4/4/os/i386/CentOS/RPMS/python-elementtree-1.2.6-5.el4.centos.i386.rpm
rpm -Uvh http://mirror.centos.org/centos-4/4/os/i386/CentOS/RPMS/sqlite-3.3.6-2.i386.rpm
rpm -Uvh http://mirror.centos.org/centos-4/4/os/i386/CentOS/RPMS/python-sqlite-1.1.7-1.2.1.i386.rpm
rpm -Uvh http://mirror.centos.org/centos-4/4/os/i386/CentOS/RPMS/elfutils-libelf-0.97.1-5.i386.rpm
rpm -Uvh http://mirror.centos.org/centos-4/4/os/i386/CentOS/RPMS/elfutils-0.97.1-5.i386.rpm
rpm -Uvh http://mirror.centos.org/centos-4/4/os/i386/CentOS/RPMS/rpm-4.3.3-23_nonptl.i386.rpm
rpm -Uvh http://mirror.centos.org/centos-4/4/os/i386/CentOS/RPMS/rpm-python-4.3.3-23_nonptl.i386.rpm
rpm -Uvh http://mirror.centos.org/centos-4/4/os/i386/CentOS/RPMS/python-urlgrabber-2.9.8-2.noarch.rpm
rpm -Uvh ftp://ftp.nluug.nl/pub/os/Linux/distr/CentOS/4.6/os/s390/CentOS/RPMS/centos-yumconf-4-4.5.noarch.rpm
rpm -Uvh http://mirror.centos.org/centos-4/4/os/i386/CentOS/RPMS/yum-metadata-parser-1.0-8.el4.centos.i386.rpm
rpm -Uvh http://mirror.centos.org/centos-4/4/os/i386/CentOS/RPMS/yum-2.4.3-4.el4.centos.noarch.rpm
yum -y update
CentOS 5
rpm -Uvh http://mirror.centos.org/centos-5/5/os/i386/CentOS/gmp-4.1.4-10.el5.i386.rpm
rpm -Uvh http://mirror.centos.org/centos-5/5/os/i386/CentOS/readline-5.1-1.1.i386.rpm
rpm -Uvh http://mirror.centos.org/centos-5/5/os/i386/CentOS/python-2.4.3-21.el5.i386.rpm
rpm -Uvh http://mirror.centos.org/centos-5/5/os/i386/CentOS/libxml2-2.6.26-2.1.2.1.i386.rpm
rpm -Uvh http://mirror.centos.org/centos-5/5/os/i386/CentOS/libxml2-python-2.6.26-2.1.2.1.i386.rpm
rpm -Uvh http://mirror.centos.org/centos-5/5/os/i386/CentOS/expat-1.95.8-8.2.1.i386.rpm
rpm -Uvh http://mirror.centos.org/centos-5/5/os/i386/CentOS/python-elementtree-1.2.6-5.i386.rpm
rpm -Uvh http://mirror.centos.org/centos-5/5/os/i386/CentOS/sqlite-3.3.6-2.i386.rpm
rpm -Uvh http://mirror.centos.org/centos-5/5/os/i386/CentOS/python-sqlite-1.1.7-1.2.1.i386.rpm
rpm -Uvh http://mirror.centos.org/centos-5/5/os/i386/CentOS/elfutils-0.125-3.el5.i386.rpm
rpm -Uvh http://mirror.centos.org/centos-5/5/os/i386/CentOS/rpm-python-4.4.2-48.el5.i386.rpm
rpm -Uvh http://mirror.centos.org/centos-5/5/os/i386/CentOS/m2crypto-0.16-6.el5.2.i386.rpm
rpm -Uvh http://mirror.centos.org/centos-5/5/os/i386/CentOS/python-urlgrabber-3.1.0-2.noarch.rpm
rpm -Uvh http://mirror.centos.org/centos-5/5/os/i386/CentOS/yum-metadata-parser-1.1.2-2.el5.i386.rpm
rpm -Uvh http://mirror.centos.org/centos-5/5/os/i386/CentOS/yum-3.2.8-9.el5.centos.1.noarch.rpm
yum -y update
Note: Updated 8 July 2008