FC4: Unnecessary network "noise"?

[Paul Howarth]

On Thu, 2005-08-18 at 12:12 +0300, Antti J. Huhtala wrote:
> On Wed, 17 Aug 2005 18:48:10 +0100 Paul Howarth wrote:
> On Wed, 2005-08-17 at 19:00 +0300, Antti J. Huhtala wrote:
> > Hi all,
> > 
> > [snip]
> > 
> > "After installing FC4-x86_64 a few days ago, on July 1st Red Hat
> Network
> > wanted me to update lots of RPMs which I okayed. The packets seem to
> > work OK, but now my box contacts RHN _once_every_minute_ obviously
> > asking for new updates. What's the point? I should think once per day
> > would be sufficient..."
> > 
> > Later I've read RHN FAQs and checked /etc/sysconfig/rhn/rhnsd which
> only
> > says: INTERVAL=240
> > 
> > If I'm not mistaken, this should mean my box connects to RHN every
> four
> > hours. However, I'm still connecting to RHN once every minute (I've
> got
> > Ethereal logs to prove it).
> > 
> > So my question is: Why does my box connect to RHN all the time and
> where
> > is the parameter to change?
> 
> You don't need to run rhnsd at all. There is no Fedora channel on Red
> Hat Network. up2date just uses regular yum repositories by default in
> FC4.
> 
> Paul.
> -- 
> Paul Howarth <paul at city-fan.org>
> 
> Thanks for your reply, Paul, but it doesn't quite answer my question.
> I'm not worried about updates as such. I run up2date every two weeks or
> so, and it works fine - except that it complains about my "registration
> not being active" and that there is no systemid file in
> my /etc/sysconfig/rhn or anywhere else.

Do you have any non-comment line in /etc/sysconfig/rhn/sources other
than:

repomd fedora http://fedora.redhat.com/

There should particularly not be an "up2date" entry.

> To be precise, my box connects to xmlrpc.rhn.redhat.com with one minute
> intervals. Assuming this is the server up2date utilises to fetch
> updates, why must up2date request for updates so often? IMHO, this is
> neither desirable nor necessary.
> The configuration file for up2date in /etc/sysconfig/rhn/up2date has a
> line stating "updateUp2date=1" which roughly means "update whenever
> possible".

"when possible", not "whenever possible"

> I suppose this is a Boolean "1" and not the interval of
> update requests?

Fedora does not use the Red Hat Network *at all*. If you have the rhnsd
service running, you can turn it off. See if that stops the activity.
up2date will still work. There is no need to register with RHN - in fact
it's not even possible.

Paul.
-- 
Paul Howarth <paul at city-fan.org>