Photon OS Migration to New Package Repository

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

Background 

• Photon OS has transitioned the default package repository from Bintray  to packages.vmware.com/photon.
• All the packages and artifacts  that existed on the Bintray for various releases of Photon OS  are fully available on packages.vmware.com/photon. 
• All Photon OS consumers would be required to update their package repositories to ensure they are pointed to packages.vmware.com/photon
• Bintray repository is going to be retired soon. Packages and Releases for Photon OS will not be available for updates from this repository from 25-Nov-2020 onwards. 

This article is aimed to help, 

1. Check if the instance of Photon you are running is pointing to the old repository (located at dl.bintray.com/vmware/)
2. If you are yet to migrate to the new package repository, help you migrate to the new repository 

Applicability

• IMPORTANT NOTE:- Customers running Virtual Appliances provided by VMware need not take any action on this as this should be managed by the Appliance itself. 
• This is intended for the customers consuming Photon, i.e. users who have downloaded Photon OS from the publicly available artifacts in GitHub to run your applications, you need to make simple updates to the configuration to ensure your instance is pointed to the new repository.  

Resolution

Check the Current Package Repository on your Photon OS Instance 

• Execute the following commands
  $ cd /etc/yum.repos.d/
$ cat ./!(photon-iso.repo) | grep baseurl

• If you see an output containing the mention of dl.bintray.com it means your Photon instance is still looking for update packages from Bintray repository and you must take the below described action.
• Note: file://mnt/cdrom/RPMS may be present for the locally mounted location. This should be left in place if it appears.

 

Changing the Default Package Repository Location in Photon OS

There are two ways to change the default package repository location in Photon OS

Method 1 

• Execute the command as shown below and it is as simple as that
  Command to execute :- 

  $ tdnf update photon-repos

• When prompted with the question as below, kindly type 'y'

• Output should look like below and that should complete the task successfully 

Method 2

• Execute the below commands 

$ cd /etc/yum.repos.d/
$ sed  -i 's/dl.bintray.com\/vmware/packages.vmware.com\/photon\/$releasever/g' photon.repo photon-updates.repo photon-extras.repo photon-debuginfo.repo

 

Confirm Changes 

• Confirm the changes are done successfully 

$ cd /etc/yum.repos.d/
$ cat ./!(photon-iso.rpo) | grep baseurl 

• If the changes are successful the output should look like below.