Why is yum not working properly?

When I try to run "yum install vim" for instance, I get the following error:

# yum install vim
Setting up Install Process
Setting up repositories
core                      100% |=========================| 1.1 kB    00:00     
http://update.onlinehome-server.info/fedora/linux/core/updates/6/x86_64/repodata/repomd.xml: [Errno 12] Timeout: 
Trying other mirror.
Error: Cannot open/read repomd.xml file for repository: updates-released

So I attempted to fix this issue by running this command:

# yum clean all && yum clean metadata && yum clean dbcache && yum makecache && yum update
Cleaning up Everything
0 metadata files removed
0 cache files removed
Setting up repositories
core                      100% |=========================| 1.1 kB    00:00     
http://update.onlinehome-server.info/fedora/linux/core/updates/6/x86_64/repodata/repomd.xml: [Errno 4] IOError: 
Trying other mirror.
Error: Cannot open/read repomd.xml file for repository: updates-released

I'd like to get Yum working so I can install vim, ntp, and rsync. That's all.

edit: Unfortunately, this server is legacy and we cannot upgrade the distro or change it.

Solution 1:

You appear to be trying to get at a Fedora 6 repository. I believe Fedora 6 is EOL. There might still be mirrors around, but the mainstream mirrors have mostly been retired. You probably are looking at an upgrade to a more current version of Fedora.

If you are not keeping on the Fedora upgrade treadmill, you may be happier moving to a distribution which doesn't churn as quickly, such as CentOS.

Solution 2:

Fedora 6 is EOL but this blog post (Keeping Fedora 6 going...) might be helpful.

Edit fedora-extras.repo:

[extras]
name=Fedora Extras $releasever - $basearch
#baseurl=http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux/extras/$releasever/$basearch/
#mirrorlist=http://mirrors.fedoraproject.org/mirrorlist?repo=extras-$releasever&arch=$basearch
baseurl=http://ftp.uni-bayreuth.de/linux/fedora/linux/extras/$releasever/$basearch/
enabled=1
gpgkey=file:///etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-fedora-extras
gpgcheck=1

Edit fedora-updates.repo to disable updates [yum will complain about it]

[updates]
name=Fedora Core $releasever - $basearch - Updates
#baseurl=http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux/core/updates/$releasever/$basearch/
mirrorlist=http://mirrors.fedoraproject.org/mirrorlist?repo=updates-released-fc$releasever&arch=$basearch
enabled=0
gpgcheck=1
gpgkey=file:///etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-fedora