Installing development tools in RHEL 6

Question

I have admin privilege on my office computer (running RHEL 6) which is connected in a network. I was trying to install development tools using the command: sudo yum groupinstall "Development Tools" but I got an error message saying:

Updating certificate-based repositories.
There was an error communicating with RHN.
RHN Satellite or RHN Classic support will be disabled.

Error Message:
 Please run rhn_register as root on this client
 Error Class Code: 9
 Error Class Info: Invalid System Credentials.

I tried to run rhn_register, it said "It appears this system has already been registered for software updates".

Scrolling down, I found following lines:

Setting up Group Process
Warning: Group development does not have any packages.  
No packages in any requested group available to install or update

Are these two things connected? Or the installation process of development tools have changed?

Answer 1

So, two things...

One: Certificate based repositories are a function of "subscription_manager" while "RHN Classic" is the traditional RHN. First you need to know which type your system is using. If it's "certificate-based repositories" (aka subscription_manager) then you'll see the file /etc/yum.repos.d/redhat.repo with content like:

[rhel-6-server-rpms]
name = Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 Server (RPMs)
baseurl = https://cdn.redhat.com/content/rhel/server/6/$releasever/$basearch/os
enabled = 0
gpgcheck = 1
gpgkey = file:///etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-redhat-beta,file:///etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-redhat-release
sslverify = 1
sslcacert = /etc/rhsm/ca/redhat-uep.pem
sslclientkey = /etc/pki/entitlement/1111111111111111111-key.pem
sslclientcert = /etc/pki/entitlement/1111111111111111111.pem
metadata_expire = 86400

If this is the case you're likely using subscription_manager, if on the other hand you have a file located at: /etc/sysconfig/rhn/systemid then the system has been registered via "RHN Classic". Regardless, whichever method you have used, the other one should be turned off. This can be done by configuring the corresponding plugin's config located in: /etc/yum/pluginconf.d/

For "RHN Classic" this will be the file "rhnplugin.conf" and for "subscription_manager" it will be "subscription-manager.conf". These are enabled/disabled by setting the boolean value "enabled=[0|1]" in the corresponding configuration file. If you have neither of these configurations then your system is not registered via RHN/subscription_manager and despite having local administration privileges you should contact your sysadmin who is in control of your RHN entitlements. If you are registered, let's keep going.

Once you have disabled the plugin you have chosen not to use, verify that you can see the groups available and no error messages via the command:

yum grouplist

or, even better:

yum grouplist | grep -i development 

this should yield output similar to:

redbeard@yum01 [~]# yum grouplist | grep -i development
   Additional Development
   Desktop Platform Development
   Development tools
   Server Platform Development

You'll notice that the name "Development tools" has a lowercase initial character in the second word. I did validate that this should work regardless of case.

redbeard@yum01 [~]# sudo yum groupinstall "Development Tools"
Loaded plugins: product-id, security, subscription-manager
This system is receiving updates from Red Hat Subscription Management.
Setting up Group Process
Package 1:pkgconfig-0.23-9.1.el6.x86_64 already installed and latest version
Package binutils-2.20.51.0.2-5.36.el6.x86_64 already installed and latest version
Package elfutils-0.152-1.el6.x86_64 already installed and latest version
Resolving Dependencies
--> Running transaction check
---> Package autoconf.noarch 0:2.63-5.1.el6 will be installed
---> Package automake.noarch 0:1.11.1-4.el6 will be installed
---> Package bison.x86_64 0:2.4.1-5.el6 will be installed
---> Package byacc.x86_64 0:1.9.20070509-7.el6 will be installed
---> Package cscope.x86_64 0:15.6-6.el6 will be installed
---> Package ctags.x86_64 0:5.8-2.el6 will be installed
....

Answer 2

Nowadays It's not enough being registered the system and it's required "Service Level Preference" to at least "Self-Support". Repository availability is depend on the Service Level Preference. So use following steps to acquire correct service level.

Further after register system using "subscription-manager" on command line, it's possible to manage other features at the Subscription Management Web Portal.

01. Check your enabled subscriptions

subscription-manager list

02. Register your system to Customer Portal Subscription Management

subscription-manager register --username your_username --password your_password

03. List the available service levels

subscription-manager service-level --list

04. Set a your desired level use the switch

subscription-manager service-level --set=self-support
subscription-manager list

05. list of all your provided repositories through a certain subscription

subscription-manager repos --list
yum repolist all

Note: If subscribing is not working can use auto option as follows.

subscription-manager attach --auto

To remove all subscriptions

subscription-manager remove --all

To achieve install development tools use following steps.

01. To find out what is in this group use command

yum groupinfo "Development Tools"

OR

yum grouplist | grep -i development

02. Install Development Tools

yum groupinstall "Development Tools"

03. Check and verify Installed Versions of few tools

gcc --version
make --version