[CentOS] Dag repo

Tue Nov 8 15:46:26 UTC 2005
John Hinton <webmaster at ew3d.com>

Dag Wieers wrote:

>On Tue, 8 Nov 2005, Colm MacCarthaigh wrote:
>
>  
>
>>On Tue, Nov 08, 2005 at 11:45:21AM +0100, Dag Wieers wrote:
>>    
>>
>>>On Mon, 7 Nov 2005, Johnny Hughes wrote:
>>>      
>>>
>>>>On Mon, 2005-11-07 at 17:00 -0500, John Hinton wrote:
>>>>
>>>>        
>>>>
>>>>>Yes and I'm glad I have both version 3 and version 4 servers as version 
>>>>>3 is updating just fine, but all of my CentOS v 4 machines are stuck in 
>>>>>lala land for about 5 days now. Happened once before, but was fixed, but 
>>>>>it's back....
>>>>>
>>>>>--------
>>>>>Setting up Update Process
>>>>>Setting up repositories
>>>>>//var/cache/yum/dag/repomd.xml:1: parser error : Document is empty
>>>>>
>>>>>^
>>>>>//var/cache/yum/dag/repomd.xml:1: parser error : Start tag expected, '<' 
>>>>>not found
>>>>>
>>>>>^
>>>>>dag                       100% |=========================|    0 B    
>>>>>00:00    
>>>>>http://apt.sw.be/redhat/el4/en/i386/dag/repodata/repomd.xml: [Errno -1] 
>>>>>Error importing repomd.xml for dag: Error: could not parse file 
>>>>>//var/cache/yum/dag/repomd.xml
>>>>>Trying other mirror.
>>>>>Cannot open/read repomd.xml file for repository: dag
>>>>>failure: repodata/repomd.xml from dag: [Errno 256] No more mirrors to try.
>>>>>Error: failure: repodata/repomd.xml from dag: [Errno 256] No more 
>>>>>mirrors to try.
>>>>>-------
>>>>>
>>>>>Same deal since about Wednesday or Friday of last week.
>>>>>
>>>>>I'm about to go comment out my chance at beautiful women. :)
>>>>>          
>>>>>
>>>>Pick a different mirror, that one is also an Apache Project test
>>>>server :)
>>>>        
>>>>
>>>Sigh. And chances are they don't know something has been wrong for the 
>>>last couple of weeks...
>>>      
>>>
>>This mail contains no useful information. What is the problem, and what
>>do you want us to do?
>>    
>>
>
>I don't know what the problem is. Either the file is empty on the 
>filesystem (corruption on the filesystem level or problems with rsync or 
>NFS) or the web server is handing out empty files under certain 
>conditions.
>
>Without access to the system I have no clue whether the filesystem is the 
>problem or it is Apache related. I bet it is Apache's problem as mirrors 
>of Heanet do not seem to have this problem. (This is different than when 
>it was a NFS problem with the same symptoms)
>
>I checked and I currently do not see a problem:
>
>	http://apt.sw.be/redhat/el4/en/i386/dag/repodata/repomd.xml
>	http://mirrors.ircam.fr/pub/dag/redhat/el4/en/i386/dag/repodata/repomd.xml
>
>I have seen all sorts of reports from people saying that it sometimes 
>works, sometimes not, and people saying it never works.
>
>Also not sure if it could be proxy or transparant-proxy related.
>
>If you could check whether there are times where Apache logs a zero-file 
>transfer for repomd.xml (or other files in the repository) that might help 
>find the cause.
>
>Kind regards,
>--   dag wieers,  dag at wieers.com,  http://dag.wieers.com/   --
>[all I want is a warm bed and a kind word and unlimited power]
>_______________________________________________
>  
>
Well, as per usual, the TV fixed itself on the way to the repair shop. 
An hour or so after posting the original, it was fixed (after about 
three to five days).

The repomd.xml file on my machine was empty. Looking at the message from 
yum, it couldn't find '<' which I would assume is an opening tag which 
is expected. My 'best guess' is that the file is empty, or a cache of 
the file is empty. I assume yum on CentOS 4 uses xml whereas yum on 
CentOS 3 does not? As I have never had this problem on v.3 machines.

This has been an on again and off again problem. Perhaps the 'some' who 
never connect, are just trying at bad times?

What would be helpful, at least until you can get to the root of the 
problem, is to post in the FAQ section, alternative mirrors. As these 
could change, and I would assume you would know about that pretty 
quickly... the 'official' DAG mirror list could be kept current on the 
site, allowing us to feel more secure about selections.

It's just a bit of a pain to go comment you out on 6 or so machines in 
order to get CentOS updates. Not to mention the chance of 'not' having 
beautiful women flocking to your door.

Thanks so much for all of your work. It is really appreciated and so 
well done... Stuff like this is just so non-Dag-like.

John Hinton