Thanks for the clarification Nico. You are correct, I forgot that RHEL boxes uses strings like '6Server' and that this same problem might existing with a variety of OSes.
It sounds like manually modifying the .repo files is the best solution for now. In some cases, the .repo files are generated programmatically (I'm struggling with Puppet at the moment, and some code fixes are problem). Thanks again, -= Stefan On Thu, Jul 11, 2013 at 7:33 PM, Nico Kadel-Garcia <[email protected]> wrote: > On Thu, Jul 11, 2013 at 3:39 PM, Stefan Lasiewski <[email protected]> > wrote: > > When using third party Yum repositories, I often run into a problem with > the > > yum variable $releasever . Scientific Linux uses a version number which > is > > different then what is expected on many third party repositories, which > > means that I need to go in and make changes to the appropriate > > /etc/yum.repos.d/*.repo files every time I run into this error. > > > > What is the best way to handle this problem, short of modifying the > *.repo > > every single time? Is this a SL bug? > > Red Hat calles it "6Server" or "6Workstation", which causes similar > problems, and every repository seems to handle it differently, The > EPEL repository uses "el4", "el5", and "el6", and uses "fc16", "fc17', > etc for fedora releases. So manipulating the .repo files can work > well, especially if the repo files themselves are in an RPM configured > to the major release number. > > > In this example, I am simply trying to get Puppet installed on SL6.4: > > > > root@sl6:/etc/yum.repos.d # /usr/bin/yum -q -y install npm > > > http://patches.fedorapeople.org/oldnode/stable/el6.4/x86_64/repodata/repomd.xml > : > > [Errno 14] PYCURL ERROR 22 - "The requested URL returned error: 404 Not > > Found" > > You're going to need to modify your .repo file, becuase geting Fedora > to change this is not going to happen. > > > Trying other mirror. > > Error: Cannot retrieve repository metadata (repomd.xml) for repository: > > nodejs-stable. Please verify its path and try again > > > > > > The reason this error occurs is because the repo expects a $releasever > > variable like '5' or '6' . Visit the repo at > > http://patches.fedorapeople.org/oldnode/stable/ , and see that it > expects > > strings like 'el6' & 'el5': > > Not exactly. it's because Red Hat, CentOS, and Scientific Linux have > each used a different standard for naming their "releasever", and > different repositories follow different standards. (See EPEL for an > example). I like Scientific Linux's standard: it gives access to minor > release specific differentiation of base and update repositories. > -- Stefan Lasiewski Email: [email protected] Computer System Engineer III Email: [email protected] Networking, Security, and Servers Group National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC<http://nersc.gov> ) Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
