Ошибка не удалось загрузить метаданные для репозитория

If you, for one reason or the other, are still actively using CentOS 8, you might probably have encountered the following error when trying to update your system or simply install a package.

“Error: Failed to download metadata for repo ‘appstream’: Cannot prepare internal mirrorlist: No URLs in mirrorlist”

For example, in the screenshot that follows, I was trying to install the fio package and run into it.

What is the Cause of This Error?

You may well be aware that CentOS Linux 8 died a premature death, it reached the End Of Life (EOL) on December 31st, 2021, thus it no longer receives development resources from the official CentOS project.

This means that after Dec 31st, 2021, to update your CentOS installation, you are required to change the mirrors to CentOS Vault Mirror, where they will be archived permanently.

Fix Error: Failed to Download Metadata for Repo ‘AppStream’

To fix the above error, open your terminal or login via ssh, and run the following commands to change the repo URL to point to vault.centos.org, from the official CentOS repos.

Here we use the sed command to edit the required directives or parameters in the repo configuration files:

# sed -i 's/mirrorlist/#mirrorlist/g' /etc/yum.repos.d/CentOS-*
# sed -i 's|#baseurl=http://mirror.centos.org|baseurl=http://vault.centos.org|g' /etc/yum.repos.d/CentOS-*

Alternatively, you can also point to the Cloudflare-based vault repository, by running the following commands:

# sed -i 's/mirrorlist/#mirrorlist/g' /etc/yum.repos.d/CentOS-Linux-*
# sed -i 's|#baseurl=http://mirror.centos.org|baseurl=http://vault.epel.cloud|g' /etc/yum.repos.d/CentOS-Linux-*

Now you should be able to update CentOS or install packages without any error:

If you wish to migrate from CentOS 8 to Rock Linux 8 or AlamLinux 8, check these guides:

• How to Migrate from CentOS 8 to Rocky Linux 8
• How to Migrate from CentOS 8 to AlmaLinux 8.5

That’s all! We hope that this guide helped you fix the above-aforementioned error. Use the comment form below to share feedback with us, you can ask questions as well.

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I had installed a minimalist CentOS 8 on one of my servers. Installation went successful, however, when I tried to update the system using yum update I see this error message: Failed to download metadata for repo. Below is the complete error.

[root@autocontroller ~]# yum update
CentOS-8 - AppStream 70 B/s | 38 B 00:00
Error: Failed to download metadata for repo 'AppStream': Cannot prepare internal mirrorlist: No URLs in mirrorlist

Output from the /var/log/dnf.log for more DEBUG information:

2022-02-02T11:39:36Z DEBUG error: Curl error (6): Couldn't resolve host name for http://mirrorlist.centos.org/?release=8&arch=x86_64&repo=AppStream&infra=stock [Could not resolve host: mirrorlist.centos.org] (http://mirrorlist.centos.org/?release=8&arch=x86_64&repo=AppStream&infra=stock).
2022-02-02T11:39:36Z WARNING Errors during downloading metadata for repository 'AppStream':
- Curl error (6): Couldn't resolve host name for http://mirrorlist.centos.org/?release=8&arch=x86_64&repo=AppStream&infra=stock [Could not resolve host: mirrorlist.centos.org]
2022-02-02T11:39:36Z DDEBUG Cleaning up.
2022-02-02T11:39:36Z SUBDEBUG
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/usr/lib/python3.6/site-packages/dnf/repo.py", line 573, in load
ret = self._repo.load()
File "/usr/lib64/python3.6/site-packages/libdnf/repo.py", line 394, in load
return _repo.Repo_load(self)
RuntimeError: Failed to download metadata for repo 'AppStream': Cannot prepare internal mirrorlist: Curl error (6): Couldn't resolve host name for http://mirrorlist.centos.org/?release=8&arch=x86_64&repo=AppStream&infra=stock [Could not resolve host: mirrorlist.centos.org]

But, then verified with the internet connection and DNS and it works just fine as below:

[root@autocontroller ~]# ping google.com
PING google.com (172.217.166.206) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from del03s13-in-f14.1e100.net (172.217.166.206): icmp_seq=1 ttl=115 ti me=43.5 ms
--- google.com ping statistics ---
1 packets transmitted, 1 received, 0% packet loss, time 0ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 43.508/43.508/43.508/0.000 ms

So how did I fix the issue? Here it is.

CentOS Linux 8 had reached the End Of Life (EOL) on December 31st, 2021. It means that CentOS 8 will no longer receive development resources from the official CentOS project. After Dec 31st, 2021, if you need to update your CentOS, you need to change the mirrors to vault.centos.org where they will be archived permanently. Alternatively, you may want to upgrade to CentOS Stream.

Step 1: Go to the /etc/yum.repos.d/ directory.

[root@autocontroller ~]# cd /etc/yum.repos.d/

Step 2: Run the below commands

[root@autocontroller ~]# sed -i 's/mirrorlist/#mirrorlist/g' /etc/yum.repos.d/CentOS-*

[root@autocontroller ~]# sed -i 's|#baseurl=http://mirror.centos.org|baseurl=http://vault.centos.org|g' /etc/yum.repos.d/CentOS-*

Step 3: Now run the yum update

[root@autocontroller ~]# yum update -y

That’s it!

In my case, which is really exceptional, the location of the XML file which contains the repo information is changed.

• I have Internet connection (ping 8.8.8.8 works)
• When I run yum upgrade, after a lot of 404 error, I can get the names of packages I must download, but I cannot download them.

And, when I browse into the first 404 repo URL, which is:

http://mirror.airenetworks.es/CentOS/7.4.1708/os/x86_64/repodata/repomd.xml

and I see it absent. Going to its parent folder http://mirror.airenetworks.es/CentOS/7.4.1708/readme I get this:

This directory (and version of CentOS) is deprecated. For normal users,
you should use /7/ and not /7.4.1708/ in your path. Please see this FAQ
concerning the CentOS release scheme:

https://wiki.centos.org/FAQ/General

If you know what you are doing, and absolutely want to remain at the 7.4.1708
level, go to http://vault.centos.org/ for packages.

Please keep in mind that 7.4.1708 no longer gets any updates, nor
any security fix’s.

So, I have to go back to /etc/yum.repo.d to edit the files.

I have:

[base]
name=CentOS-$releasever - Base
mirrorlist=http://mirrorlist.centos.org/?release=$releasever&arch=$basearch&repo=os&infra=$infra
#baseurl=http://mirror.centos.org/centos/$releasever/os/$basearch/
gpgcheck=1
gpgkey=file:///etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-CentOS-7

#released updates
[updates]
name=CentOS-$releasever - Updates
mirrorlist=http://mirrorlist.centos.org/?release=$releasever&arch=$basearch&repo=updates&infra=$infra
#baseurl=http://mirror.centos.org/centos/$releasever/updates/$basearch/
gpgcheck=1
gpgkey=file:///etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-CentOS-7

I suspect that $releasever is no more in use, so I can test by changing it to 7:(remember to escape & with )

curl http://mirrorlist.centos.org/?release=7&arch=x86_64&repo=os&infra=arch

we can get a list of files:

ftp://ftp.cesca.cat/centos/7.5.1804/os/x86_64/
http://ftp.rediris.es/mirror/CentOS/7.5.1804/os/x86_64/
http://ftp.cica.es/CentOS/7.5.1804/os/x86_64/
http://centos.mirror.minorisa.net/7.5.1804/os/x86_64/
http://repo.nixval.com/CentOS/7.5.1804/os/x86_64/
http://centos.uvigo.es/7.5.1804/os/x86_64/
http://ftp.uma.es/mirror/CentOS/7.5.1804/os/x86_64/
http://ftp.cixug.es/CentOS/7.5.1804/os/x86_64/
http://mirror.airenetworks.es/CentOS/7.5.1804/os/x86_64/
http://mirror.gadix.com/centos/7.5.1804/os/x86_64/

So, we can set the variable like this:

1. Open the /etc/yum.repo.d/CentOS-Base.repo
2. In the [base] section, define: releasever=7.
3. Re-run yum upgrade or yum install xxx.