https://access.redhat.com/support/cases/00546517 https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=746053 And a new twist discovered this morning: RHN directed me to rename the repo [rhel-x86_64-server-5] in /etc/yum.repos.d/cobbler-config.repo I did and that fixed the problem on the client side. However, when I tried to apply the same name-change to the repo on the cobbler server, it said: cobbler reposync --only=local-rhel-x86_64-server-5 task started: 2011-10-18_083252_reposync task started (id=Reposync, time=Tue Oct 18 08:32:52 2011) hello, reposync run, reposync, run! Exception occured: cobbler.cexceptions.CX Exception value: 'ERROR: repository local-rhel-x86_64-server-5 needs to be renamed rhel-x86_64-server-5 as the name of the cobbler repository must match the name of the RHN channel' Exception Info: File "/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/cobbler/utils.py", line 123, in die raise CX(msg) Exception occured: cobbler.cexceptions.CX Exception value: 'ERROR: repository local-rhel-x86_64-server-5 needs to be renamed rhel-x86_64-server-5 as the name of the cobbler repository must match the name of the RHN channel' Exception Info: File "/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/cobbler/action_reposync.py", line 119, in run self.sync(repo) File "/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/cobbler/action_reposync.py", line 148, in sync return self.rhn_sync(repo) File "/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/cobbler/action_reposync.py", line 279, in rhn_sync utils.die(self.logger,"ERROR: repository %(name)s needs to be renamed %(rest)s as the name of the cobbler repository must match the name of the RHN channel" % args) File "/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/cobbler/utils.py", line 131, in die raise CX(msg) reposync failed, tries left: 0 reposync failed, retry limit reached, skipping running: chown -R root:apache /var/www/cobbler/repo_mirror/local-rhel-x86_64-server-5 received on stdout: received on stderr: running: chmod -R 755 /var/www/cobbler/repo_mirror/local-rhel-x86_64-server-5 received on stdout: received on stderr: Exception occured: cobbler.cexceptions.CX Exception value: 'overall reposync failed, at least one repo failed to synchronize' Exception Info: File "/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/cobbler/utils.py", line 123, in die raise CX(msg) Exception occured: cobbler.cexceptions.CX Exception value: 'overall reposync failed, at least one repo failed to synchronize' Exception Info: File "/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/cobbler/remote.py", line 95, in run rc = self._run(self) File "/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/cobbler/remote.py", line 241, in runner 3), name=name, nofail=nofail, logger=self.logger) File "/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/cobbler/api.py", line 637, in reposync return reposync.run(name) File "/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/cobbler/action_reposync.py", line 135, in run utils.die(self.logger,"overall reposync failed, at least one repo failed to synchronize") File "/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/cobbler/utils.py", line 131, in die raise CX(msg) !!! TASK FAILED !!! “Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us.” Bill Waterson (Calvin & Hobbes)