Yum update fails with 'Error: Cannot retrieve repository metadata (repomd.xml) for repository'

Solution Verified - Updated -

Environment

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6
  • Red Hat Network Satellite or Proxy 5.4 or later

Issue

  • Yum update fails with :
Error: Cannot retrieve repository metadata (repomd.xml) for repository: XXXX. Please verify its path and try again

Resolution

  • Verify that the Satellite or Proxy server has a fully-qualified domain name (FQDN), and that the CommonName (CN) in the SSL certificate used by Apache is set to the FQDN:

    • For a self-signed Satellite certificate, the CN field should be FQDN for Issuer and Subject and these two fields should be matching,

      # grep CN /etc/httpd/conf/ssl.crt/server.crt
Issuer: C=US, ST=North Carolina, O=Example Corp. Inc., OU=unit, CN=satellite.example.com
Subject: C=US, ST=North Carolina, O=Example Corp. Inc., OU=unit, CN=satellite.example.com/emailAddress=admin@example.com

    • For a third-party SSL certificate, the CN field should be FQDN in Subject,

      Subject: C=US, ST=North Carolina, O=Example Corp. Inc., OU=unit, CN=satellite.example.com/emailAddress=admin@example.com

  • Also verify that the ssl.conf configuration file is pointing to the correct files:

    # grep ^SSLCert /etc/httpd/conf.d/ssl.conf
SSLCertificateFile /etc/httpd/conf/ssl.crt/server.crt
SSLCertificateKeyFile /etc/httpd/conf/ssl.key/server.key

  • Ensure that serverURL in the client system's /etc/sysconfig/rhn/up2date file uses the FQDN of the Satellite or Proxy server, e.g.:

    serverURL=https://satellite.example.com/XMLRPC

  • If the system connects to RHN via an http proxy, ensure that /etc/sysconfig/rhn/up2date is configured with the correct http_proxy information:

    httpProxy=http_proxy_fqdn or ip_address:port

  • If there is a duplicate file of /etc/sysconfig/rhn/up2date, remove it from /etc/sysconfig/rhn/

  • Ensure latest version of yum is installed:

# yum update yum

  • If all above settings are correct then clean the cache on client system using below command,

    # rm -rf /var/cache/yum/*

Root Cause

  • Inconsistent SSL configuration
  • Incorrect entries for http proxy and port number
  • Component
  • yum

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