yum does not work on RHEL 6.3

Question

I have installed RHEL 6.3:

Linux RHEL6.3-64-BuildMac 2.6.32-279.el6.x86_64 #1 SMP Wed Jun 13 18:24:36 EDT 2012 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

My /etc/yum.conf looks as follows:

[main]  
cachedir=/var/cache/yum/$basearch/$releasever  
keepcache=0  
debuglevel=2  
logfile=/var/log/yum.log  
exactarch=1  
obsoletes=1  
gpgcheck=1  
plugins=1  
installonly_limit=3  
reposdir=/etc/yum.repos.d/rhel.repo

The contents of my /etc.yum.repo.d/rhel.repo looks like

[rhelrepo]  
name=my rhel repo  
baseurl=http://mirror.centos.org/centos/6.3/os/x86_64/  
#gpgkey=http://mirror.centos.org/centos/6.3/os/x86_64/RPM-GPG-KEY-CentOS-6  
enabled=1  
gpgcheck=0 

But now when I do "yum repolist" I get the following message:

Loaded plugins: security
repolist: 0

What do I do to resolve this?

Answer 1

You are trying to update a RHEL6 system with a RHEL clone repository. The yum plugins on RHEL6 will not let you update the system that way. You can google for "convert RHEL6 to CentOS" (answers such as http://www.unixmen.com/201201-how-to-convert-rhel-6-x-to-centos-6-x/). Follow the directions and convert your RHEL system to CentOS which will then update. It's less than 10 rpms to convert RHEL to a RHEL-clone.

Answer 2

In your yum.conf file, try using:

 reposdir=/etc/yum.repos.d

instead of the full path to a repo filename. Yum expects reposdir to be a directory, containing the repo files.