rhel5 can not update from satellite: "Error: failed to retrieve repodata/filelists.xml.gz"

Solution Unverified - Updated -

Environment

  • Red Hat Satellite 5.6
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 5 as client/consumer

Issue

The last few days are experiencing the below issue on RHEL5 servers when trying to update them from satellite.

root@client:/root # yum update
Loaded plugins: product-id, rhnplugin, security, subscription-manager
Updating Red Hat repositories.
Skipping security plugin, no data
Setting up Update Process
Resolving Dependencies
Skipping security plugin, no data
--> Running transaction check
---> Package Deployment_Guide-en-US.noarch 0:5.8-1.el5 set to be updated
---> Package OpenIPMI.x86_64 0:2.0.16-16.el5 set to be updated
---> Package OpenIPMI-libs.x86_64 0:2.0.16-16.el5 set to be updated
---> Package OpenIPMI-tools.x86_64 0:2.0.16-16.el5 set to be updated

.......

--> Processing Dependency: liblzma.so.0()(64bit) for package: xz
--> Running transaction check
---> Package xz-libs.x86_64 0:4.999.9-0.3.beta.20091007git.el5 set to be updated
Error: failed to retrieve repodata/filelists.xml.gz from rhel-x86_64-server-5
error was [Errno 12] Timeout: <urlopen error >
 You could try using --skip-broken to work around the problem
 You could try running: package-cleanup --problems
                        package-cleanup --dupes
                        rpm -Va --nofiles --nodigest
The program package-cleanup is found in the yum-utils package.

We changed the timeout value on the client in /etc/yum/yum.conf : timeout=600.

Sometimes we have some success and get the below at the end of the yum update:

---> Package xz-libs.x86_64 0:4.999.9-0.3.beta.20091007git.el5 set to be updated

clone-channel-rhel-x86_64-server-5/filelists                                                                                        |  50 MB     00:02
clone-rhn-tools-rhel-x86_64-server-5/filelists                                                                                      | 140 kB     00:00
--> Finished Dependency Resolution

Dependencies Resolved

On some servers this works and on some it doesn't.

Where it says 
clone-channel-rhel-x86_64-server-5/filelists                                                                                        |  50 MB     00:02
this took a few minutes.

I also followed the steps in https://access.redhat.com/solutions/69227

I noticed that if i set the proxy.timeout = 999 in /etc/rhn/rhn.conf on proxy, and restarted it. then set the same timeout value in /etc/yum.conf and /etc/yum/pluginconf.d/rhnplugin.conf it is definitely timing out quicker than 999 seconds.

Last week I synced our aligned channel to the redhat channel. Yesterday, I tried to add the new nss critical errata to our 5.11 channel using a compare/merge in the GUI and it timed out on the last step.

Resolution

Several network related possible causes should be researched.

  • Can big files be fetched using "wget" or "curl" from the satellite, via HTTP and HTTPS?
  • Firewalls between satellite/proxy/client might mangle with the SSL channel. For debugging. SSL could be disabled in setting useNoSSLForPackages=1 in /etc/sysconfig/rhn/up2date.
  • traffic dumps can be taken on the satellite, the proxy and the client. Analysis of the dumps might help to point out if packets are dropped or mangled.
  • Are other clients also affected? Only clients behind a certain proxy, or also behind other proxies? Clients running different RHEL versions?
  • Are other network related issues known for the used network equipment/lines between satellite, proxy and client?

Root Cause

Several causes can apply.

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