Unable to read package metadata on Centos 6 PXE install

Question

A Centos6 pxe install is not running correctly due to error:

Unable to read package metadata.

Cannot retrieve repository metadata (repomd.xml) for repository: Centos6-os.

However from examining the logs shown below the installer is able to download repomd.xml and primary.xml.gz OK. I have tried re-running createrepo however the problem persists. From examining repomd.xml and primary.xml.gz they both look fine.

x.x.x.x - - [25/Sep/2014:18:43:07 +0100] "GET /centos/6/os/x86_64//images/updates.img HTTP/1.1" 404 312 "-" "anaconda/13.21.215"
x.x.x.x - - [25/Sep/2014:18:43:07 +0100] "GET /centos/6/os/x86_64//images/product.img HTTP/1.1" 404 312 "-" "anaconda/13.21.215"
x.x.x.x - - [25/Sep/2014:18:43:07 +0100] "GET /centos/6/os/x86_64//images/install.img HTTP/1.1" 200 144060416 "-" "anaconda/13.21.215"
x.x.x.x - - [25/Sep/2014:18:43:23 +0100] "GET /centos/6/os/x86_64//.treeinfo HTTP/1.1" 200 364 "-" "urlgrabber/3.9.1"
x.x.x.x - - [25/Sep/2014:18:43:23 +0100] "GET /centos/6/os/x86_64//.treeinfo HTTP/1.1" 200 364 "-" "urlgrabber/3.9.1"
x.x.x.x - - [25/Sep/2014:18:43:23 +0100] "GET /centos/6/os/x86_64/repodata/repomd.xml HTTP/1.1" 200 951 "-" "CentOS (anaconda)/6.5"
x.x.x.x - - [25/Sep/2014:18:43:23 +0100] "GET /centos/6/os/x86_64/repodata/primary.xml.gz HTTP/1.1" 200 2033955 "-" "CentOS (anaconda)/6.5"

Any ideas why this happening?

Thanks.

Answer 1

I found that the problem was that Anaconda appears to only be happy parsing file-lists it has obtained from the hostname and not an IP. DNS was initially not available so I was manually typing in the url during the install with the ip address, Anaconda still downloaded the file-lists as seen above but it does not parse it. When DNS was working it worked OK.