SMT - Client shows error "Valid metadata not found at specified URL"

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Environment

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12
Subscription Management Tool 11
Subscription Management Tool 12

Situation

A system is successfully registered against a SMT server but when refreshing the repositories shows the error:

[|] Valid metadata not found at specified URL(s)
Please check if the URIs defined for this repository are pointing to a valid repository.

Zypper is not able to get the metadata file from the repository located in the SMT server, the file is missing.

Resolution

In a SMT server, Apache is used to export the repositories to the Clients, therefore in the the SMT's configuration file Apache's default path is set as the destination for the mirrored repositories.

The first thing to check is the path set for the "MirrorTo" option inside the SMT's configuration file: /etc/smt.conf

The default value is:

MirrorTo = /srv/www/htdocs

If for any reason this path was changed to a different location, then a symlink must be created inside the default path to point to the new destination.

Practical example and solution:

The default path was changed to point to "/smtrepos", like this:

MirrorTo = /smtrepos

A symlink must be created inside the default path to point to the new location, but first rename the original "repo" directory:

mv /srv/www/htdocs/repo /srv/www/htdocs/repobck

Then create the symlink:

ln -s /smtrepos /srv/www/htdocs/repo

And finally, set the proper permissions to "/smtrepos" and all files and directories in it:

/usr/lib/SMT/bin/changeSMTUserPermissions.sh -y --user smt

The above script will set the permission but it is highly recommended to perform a manual check up by following these rules:

- All directories and subdirectories must have permission 755.
- All files must have permission 644.
- All files and directories must belong to user "smt" as Owner and "www" as Group.

Cause

The default destination path for mirror the repositories was changed in the SMT's configuration file, but the symlink in Apache's default path pointing to the new location was not created properly or missing.

Disclaimer

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