Red Hat Bugzilla – Bug 110246
/etc/sysconfig/rhn/sources incorrect URLs after redirects dropped
Last modified: 2007-11-30 17:10:33 EST
Description of problem: Sometime Friday or over the weekend (14 Nov to 16 Nov) the redirects being performed by http://fedora.redhat.com to http://download.fedora.redhat.com were dropped. While this is OK and maybe there should never have been redirects, this leaves the URLs in /etc/sysconfig/rhn/sources incorrect. This is going to be difficult to correct in the right way. My suggestions: 1. Restore the redirects. 2. Issue an updated up2date package with the "new" URLs based on download.fedora.redhat.com. Sometime in the future you may be able to drop the redirects but since this is built into the ISO images, it may take some time whithout screwing novice users.
The redirects are back, but that isn't good enough because rhn-applet doesn't follow them, giving the appearance that no updates are available (bug #110133). Most users won't know even if updates to up2date and rhn-applet are released.
Actually, the updated rhn-applet-2.1.4-2 package in fedora updates does seem to handle redirects. However, this could come back if the redirects disappear again AND the uRLs in /etc/sysconfig/rhn/sources differ from thos listed on http://fedora.redhat.com/download/updates.html Choose one scheme and stick to it. I assume that the redirects are handy and allow the actual target to move without changing URLs. It is also handy in changing protocols -- http access to the iso images is redirected ("transparently") to ftp.
Even if an rhn-applet update is available, bug #110133 prevents many users from seeing the very update that fixes it! They'll just see the blue checkmark and assume their system is fully updated. The only way to make these users aware of the update is to use a symlink instead of a redirect.