Bug 681023

Summary:	yum --installroot is unable to see repository
Product:	[Fedora] Fedora	Reporter:	Mikkel Lauritsen <renard>
Component:	yum	Assignee:	Seth Vidal <skvidal>
Status:	CLOSED NOTABUG	QA Contact:	Fedora Extras Quality Assurance <extras-qa>
Severity:	unspecified	Docs Contact:
Priority:	unspecified
Version:	14	CC:	ffesti, james.antill, maxamillion, pmatilai, tla
Target Milestone:	---
Target Release:	---
Hardware:	i686
OS:	Linux
Whiteboard:
Fixed In Version:		Doc Type:	Bug Fix
Doc Text:		Story Points:	---
Clone Of:		Environment:
Last Closed:	2011-02-28 20:50:33 UTC	Type:	---
Regression:	---	Mount Type:	---
Documentation:	---	CRM:
Verified Versions:		Category:	---
oVirt Team:	---	RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
Cloudforms Team:	---	Target Upstream Version:

Description Mikkel Lauritsen 2011-02-28 20:41:00 UTC

I have just tried doing an installation of Fedora for use as root filesystem for a diskless client, as discussed on https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/Fedora/14/html/Storage_Administration_Guide/diskless-nfs-config.html

# yum -v groupinstall Base --installroot=/home/nfsroot
Not loading "blacklist" plugin, as it is disabled
Loading "refresh-packagekit" plugin
Not loading "whiteout" plugin, as it is disabled
Config time: 0.326
Yum Version: 3.2.28
Setting up Package Sacks
fedora/metalink                                                                                                                                                                  |  18 kB     00:00     
Could not parse metalink https://mirrors.fedoraproject.org/metalink?repo=fedora-$releasever&arch=i386 error was 
No repomd file
Error: Cannot retrieve repository metadata (repomd.xml) for repository: fedora. Please verify its path and try again

As mentioned on http://www.mail-archive.com/users@lists.fedoraproject.org/msg28740.html other people seem to have had the same problem.

The machine this happens on is a fully updated Fedora 14 installation:
# uname -a
Linux server 2.6.35.11-83.fc14.i686.PAE #1 SMP Mon Feb 7 06:57:55 UTC 2011 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux

Using yum to do updates otherwise works fine, it's just --installroot that causes things to not work.

Comment 1 seth vidal 2011-02-28 20:50:33 UTC

the new rpmdb in the installroot has no way to discover the value of $releasever

so run:

yum --releasever=14 --installroot=/home/nfsroot groupinstall Base

and the problem should go away.,

Comment 2 James Antill 2011-02-28 22:37:32 UTC

Also, as a generic command you can use:

yum --releasever=/ --installroot=...

...which takes the releasever from outside the installroot.