[tools] Downloads failing from RHN

[Dag Wieers]

On Mon, 8 Jan 2007, Camron W. Fox wrote:

> 	I've recently installed mrepo on a CentOS 4.4 machines. Is it possible
> to download RHEL updates to the CentOS box mrepo, or do I have to download
> them to a RHEL box?
> 	I want to download updates for my RHEL ES 3.8 boxes to the CentOS box
> so I have a local repository for everything, inluding CentOS, RPMForge, etc.
> 	I set up /etc/mrepo.conf.d/rhel3es-i386.conf like this:
> 
> ### Name: Red Hat Extended Server v3
> ### URL: http://www.redhat.com/
> 
> [rhel3es-i386]
> name = Red Hat ES Server $release U8 ($arch)
> release = 3
> arch = i386
> metadata = repomd yum repoview
> 
> ### ISO images
> iso = rhel-$release-u8-$arch-es-disc?.iso
> 
> ### Additional repositories
> updates = rhns:///rhel-$arch-es-3
> fastrack = rhns:///rhel-$arch-es-3-fastrack
> extras = rhns:///rhel-$arch-es-3-extras
> devsuite = rhns:///rhel-$arch-es-3-devsuite
> rhds = rhns:///rhel-3-es-$arch-rhds-2
> rhaps = rhns:///rhel-3-es-$arch-rhaps-1
> 
> ### RPMforge repository
> rpmforge =
> rsync://apt.sw.be/pub/freshrpms/pub/dag/redhat/el$release/en/$arch/RPMS.dag/#rpmforge
> = ftp://apt.sw.be/pub/dag/pub/redhat/el$release/en/$arch/RPMS.dag/
> 
> ### ATrpms repository
> rsync://dl.atrpms.net/dl.atrpms.net/el$release-$arch/atrpms/stable/
> 
> ### PostgreSQL repository
> ftp://ftp.fr.postgresql.org/binary/v8.1.4/linux/rpms/redhat/rhel-as-$release-$arch/
> 
> 	When I run mrepo -uvv I get this for all channels:
> 
> rhel3es-i386: Mirror packages from rhns:///rhel-i386-es-3-devsuite to
> /var/mrepo/rhel3es-i386/devsuite
> rhnget: "Unknown error that needs more debugging occured with channel
> rhel-i386-es-3-devsuite. Skipping.\n'up2date'"
> mrepo: Mirroring failed for rhns:///rhel-i386-es-3-devsuite with message:
>   Failed with return code: 256

As mentioned in the redhat-network.txt documentation you need to add the 
following line to /etc/sysconfig/rhn/sources:

	up2date default

Yes, it doesn't make any sense and I cannot simply explain why, but this 
is because I'm using the up2date code to do XML-RPC (the protocol and its 
capabilities are hardly documented, so this is the easiest way).

I need to show a better error when this is not the case, but I cannot 
distinguish this error or another one easily that's why I haven't got a 
proper error message. (a workaround would be for me to scan the file 
myself which I prefer not to do)

The difference between CentOS and RHEL is that a system that's already 
registered with RHN will have this line in place in 
/etc/sysconfig/rhn/sources, while on CentOS you cannot register the system 
to RHN. That's why people believe that CentOS is unable to work with 
rhnget, which isn't the case. It does work.

Kind regards,
--   dag wieers,  dag at wieers.com,  http://dag.wieers.com/   --
[all I want is a warm bed and a kind word and unlimited power]