FC4: Unnecessary network "noise"?

[Antti J. Huhtala]

On Thu, 18 Aug 2005 10:24:04 +0100 Paul Howarth <paul at city-fan.org>
wrote:
 On Thu, 2005-08-18 at 12:12 +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.
> 
> 
> 
> 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/

No, it's the only uncommented line there.

There should particularly not be an "up2date" entry.

Well, there isn't. It says "#up2date default" - with hash.


> 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"

Sorry for being careless here.

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

Fedora does not use the Red Hat Network *at all*. 

I'll take your word for it, Paul. I must have misinterpreted the .rhn.
in the FQDN of the server.

If you have the rhnsd
service running, you can turn it off. See if that stops the activity.

OK, I'll try that. Thanks.

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>

Sorry again. I ought to have said: "up2date complains about my
'subscription not being activated' because 'one of the three Red Hat
registration steps were not completed'". I don't know which step, but
there it is... I realise now Red Hat registration and Red Hat Network
registration (if the latter _did_ exist) are two different things.

My concern about frequent connects stems from thinking about the load of
the update server. If there were tens or hundreds of thousands of FC
users, each connecting to the server with one-minute intervals, it would
make the server "feel" it is under DoS attack. Otherwise, I'm not
particularly worried about the rather copious traffic.

Thanks again, Paul

Antti