How to change syncing policy for Repositories on Satellite 6 from "Immediate" to "On-Demand".

Resolution

Please note the below procedure(s) can work on either Satellite 6.9 or older (with pulp-2), or on 6.11 or newer (with pulp-3 AND "Reclaim Space" feature implemented). There is no procedure for Satellite 6.10.

WARNING: This will remove all RPMs that were uploaded via hammer or the UI for repositories that are not synchronized from a remote source. These packages will need to be re-uploaded after running the below steps.

WARNING: This action is irreversible and data-loss may occur as you are forcibly removing all previously downloaded and uploaded RPMs. Creating a VM snapshot or backing up your Satellite before performing this operation is highly recommended

1) Backup your Satellite 6 Server using foreman-maintain. (including pulp content)

2) During the below steps, prevent any repository synchronization and ideally also client yum/dnf activity.

3) Change policy for each repository to "On-Demand" using the rake command below:
Note: This will also change the kickstart repositories to on demand which might be something you do not want - manual change for those repos e.g. in WebUI must follow

# foreman-rake katello:change_download_policy DOWNLOAD_POLICY=on_demand

Now, follow steps depending on Satellite / pulp version:

Subsequent step for Sat 6.11+ (pulp-3)

For any repository that changed Download Policy to On Demand, Reclaim its space. Either via WebUI -> the repository page -> Select Action -> Reclaim Space, or e.g. via hammer repository reclaim-space command.

Subsequent steps for Sat 6.9 or older (pulp-2)

4) Delete all the files on the file system which are stored at:

# rm -rf /var/lib/pulp/content/units/{rpm,srpm,drpm,distribution}

5) Update the database with the following script:

#!/usr/bin/env python
try:
    from pymongo import MongoClient
except ImportError:
    print 'Error: PyMongo module is not installed'
    exit()

client = MongoClient()
db = client.pulp_database

collections_list = [db.units_rpm, db.units_srpm, db.units_drpm, db.units_distribution]


def mongoupdate(collection):
    print "Updating collection " + collection.name
    results = collection.update_many(
        {"downloaded": True},
        {"$set": {"downloaded": False}}
    )
    print 'Done, updated ' + str(results.modified_count) + " records \n"

for i in collections_list:
    mongoupdate(i)

count = 0
for i in collections_list:
    print '\nChecking if there are any downloaded packages left at ' + i.name + '\n'
    cur = i.find({"downloaded": True})
    for k in cur:
        count += 1
    print '  Amount of downloaded packages  ' + str(count) + '\n'
    count = 0

6) Reload pulp:

# for i in pulp_resource_manager pulp_workers pulp_celerybeat pulp_streamer; do service $i restart; done

7) Resync all the repos with hammer using the --skip-metadata-check true flag:

USER=username
PASSWORD=password
for id in $(hammer -u $USER -p $PASSWORD repository list | grep yum | awk '{ print $1 }'); do
  echo "repository synchronize --id $id --skip-metadata-check=yes --async"
done | hammer -u $USER -p $PASSWORD shell

For more KB articles/solutions related to Red Hat Satellite 6.x Repository Issues, please refer to the Red Hat Satellite Consolidated Troubleshooting Article for Red Hat Satellite 6.x Repository Issues.