Red Hat Knowledgebase

The satellite-sync command includes an ability to forcibly process all Package Metadata: --force-all-packages.  Normal satellite-syncing operates by comparing the package metadata with the package list of Red Hat Network (RHN) by using diff.  Using --force-all-packages is useful as a way of refreshing the package metadata.

There are multiple ways of running this command.  The two most common ways are running the command for all channels, or simply for a specific channel.  Please note that, depending upon how many channels are synced on your satellite, running the command for all channels will take longer.

For a single channel, here is an example command:
satellite-sync -c rhel-i386-as-4 --force-all-packages

This would forcibly reprocess all package metadata for the channel 'rhel-i386-server-5'.  Replace that value with whichever channel you wish to reprocess.

For all channels, here is the command:
satellite-sync --force-all-packages

This will reprocess all package metadata for all channels on your satellite.

When either command finishes you will get a completion message similar to the following:

10:01:39    Importing *relevant* package metadata: rhel-i386-as-4 (84)
10:01:39    * WARNING: this may be a slow process.
            ________________________________________
Importing:  ######################################## - complete
10:03:26 
10:03:26 Linking packages to channels
10:04:24 No handler for step source-packages
10:04:24 
10:04:24 Importing channel errata
10:04:24    Importing *relevant* errata: rhel-i386-as-4 (6)
            ________________________________________
Downloading:######################################## - complete
10:04:28 Importing kickstartable trees (7)
10:04:29 Imported kickstartable trees (7)
    Import complete:
        Begin time:!
Sat Apr 26 09:45:23 2008
        End time:   Sat Apr 26 10:04:29 2008
        Elapsed:    0 hours, 19 minutes, 5 seconds