Subscription-manager and yum issues on RedHat 5

 Problem Description : 

Redhat won't run updates. Receives message similar to "Error downloading headers" which the update process then fails

 Resolution : 

The following steps can be used for basic troubleshooting on subscription-manager and yum issues. By general this can help in solving many errors or at least there are steps what to check.

In terminal window run 

yum check-update. 

This will likely show some type of error where it can not connect to a repository

This may be caused by the UUID from the system not matching the RedHat customer portal.

To get the UUID from system run below command,

# openssl x509 -in /etc/pki/consumer/cert.pem -noout -text| grep 'Subject: CN'

To check system's UUID on customer portal: Go to access.redhat.com-->Subscriptions-->Overview-->Subscriptions Utilization-->Open the system profile from 'Subscription Management' tab and check 'UUID'

If UUID does not match, clean the subscription data from system and re-register it,

# subscription-manager unregister

# subscription-manager clean

# subscription-manager register 

# subscription-manager subscribe --auto

If the auto subscribe does not subscribe to any services try the following...

run # subscription-manager list --available

Look at the available subscriptions and choose the pool id from the Product that most closely matches your system

run # subscription-manager subscribe –pool=your_chosen_pool_id

Check to see if the product status is now 'Subscribed'...

# subscription-manager list 

Try the updates again and see if they run. May have to reboot first if errors appear when accessing the Update Console.

For additional information about possible causes for this issue view Redhat Customer Portal at https://access.redhat.com/knowledge/solutions/189533

 Revision Date : 1/31/2013