CentOS Linux 7 reached its End of Life (EOL) on June 30, 2024. This is to mean no updates and security patches, and even the system repositories are discontinued and moved to vault. By using vault enable you to access packages build for CentOS 7 after EOL, but without any updates.
This method is not recommended for production workloads, you should consider migrating to other alternative distributions such as RHEL, Rocky Linux, AlmaLinux, Oracle Linux 9 or 8. This OS migration will ensure you enjoy continued security updates and support for your critical workloads.
On July 1, 2024, the CentOS team moved all its repositories to archive (vault.centos.org). We can easily confirm CentOS 7 Linux repositories are not working anymore:
$ sudo yum makecache -y
Loaded plugins: fastestmirror
Loading mirror speeds from cached hostfile
Could not retrieve mirrorlist http://mirrorlist.centos.org/?release=7&arch=x86_64&repo=os&infra=genclo error was
14: curl#6 - "Could not resolve host: mirrorlist.centos.org; Unknown error"
One of the configured repositories failed (Unknown),
and yum doesn't have enough cached data to continue. At this point the only
safe thing yum can do is fail. There are a few ways to work "fix" this:
1. Contact the upstream for the repository and get them to fix the problem.
2. Reconfigure the baseurl/etc. for the repository, to point to a working
upstream. This is most often useful if you are using a newer
distribution release than is supported by the repository (and the
packages for the previous distribution release still work).
3. Run the command with the repository temporarily disabled
yum --disablerepo=<repoid> ...
4. Disable the repository permanently, so yum won't use it by default. Yum
will then just ignore the repository until you permanently enable it
again or use --enablerepo for temporary usage:
yum-config-manager --disable <repoid>
or
subscription-manager repos --disable=<repoid>
5. Configure the failing repository to be skipped, if it is unavailable.
Note that yum will try to contact the repo. when it runs most commands,
so will have to try and fail each time (and thus. yum will be be much
slower). If it is a very temporary problem though, this is often a nice
compromise:
yum-config-manager --save --setopt=<repoid>.skip_if_unavailable=true
Cannot find a valid baseurl for repo: base/7/x86_64Fixing CentOS 7 YUM Repositories
We have created a git repository with two scripts:
generate_base_repos.sh: Use this to generate vault repositories into.repofiles.enable_repos.sh: This is used to optionally enable or disable the repositories.
Step 1: Download and run the scripts
Visit our Github repository and follow provided instructions to clone the repo or download scripts using curl.
To generate repositories run:
$ bash generate_base_repos.sh
Created centos7_repos/atomic.repo
Created centos7_repos/centosplus.repo
Created centos7_repos/dotnet.repo
Created centos7_repos/extras.repo
Created centos7_repos/fasttrack.repo
Created centos7_repos/os.repo
Created centos7_repos/rt.repo
Created centos7_repos/updates.repo
Generated .repo files for all repositories in centos7_repos.Choose the ones to enable:
$ bash enable_repos.sh
Do you want to enable repository 'atomic' (y/n)? n
Disabled repository 'atomic'.
Do you want to enable repository 'centosplus' (y/n)? y
Enabled repository 'centosplus'.
Do you want to enable repository 'dotnet' (y/n)? n
Disabled repository 'dotnet'.
Do you want to enable repository 'extras' (y/n)? y
Enabled repository 'extras'.
Do you want to enable repository 'fasttrack' (y/n)? y
Enabled repository 'fasttrack'.
Do you want to enable repository 'os' (y/n)? y
Enabled repository 'os'.
Do you want to enable repository 'rt' (y/n)? n
Disabled repository 'rt'.
Do you want to enable repository 'updates' (y/n)? y
Enabled repository 'updates'.
Repository enablement process completed.Step 2: Backup current repositories
Backup your OS repositories in case you will want to reference.
mkdir ~/repos_backup sudo mv /etc/yum.repos.d/* ~/repos_backup
Step 3: Copy generated repository files
Copy the repository files generated, they are stored in centos7_repos directory:
sudo cp -r centos7_repos/* /etc/yum.repos.d/
We are copying them into /etc/yum.repos.d/. Once done clean your repositories package cache.
$ sudo yum clean all
Loaded plugins: fastestmirror
Cleaning repos: atomic centosplus dotnet extras fasttrack os rt updates
Cleaning up list of fastest mirrorsUpdate the index of the packages.
$ sudo yum makecache fast
Loaded plugins: fastestmirror
Determining fastest mirrors
atomic | 2.9 kB 00:00:00
centosplus | 2.9 kB 00:00:00
dotnet | 2.9 kB 00:00:00
extras | 2.9 kB 00:00:00
fasttrack | 2.9 kB 00:00:00
os | 3.6 kB 00:00:00
rt | 2.9 kB 00:00:00
updates | 2.9 kB 00:00:00
(1/9): dotnet/7/x86_64/primary_db | 162 kB 00:00:00
(2/9): extras/7/x86_64/primary_db | 253 kB 00:00:00
(3/9): fasttrack/7/x86_64/primary_db | 36 kB 00:00:00
(4/9): atomic/7/x86_64/primary_db | 101 kB 00:00:00
(5/9): centosplus/7/x86_64/primary_db | 8.3 MB 00:00:00
(6/9): os/7/x86_64/group_gz | 153 kB 00:00:00
(7/9): os/7/x86_64/primary_db | 6.1 MB 00:00:00
(8/9): updates/7/x86_64/primary_db | 27 MB 00:00:00
(9/9): rt/7/x86_64/primary_db | 6.6 MB 00:00:01
Metadata Cache CreatedStep 4: Test Vault repositories
Check list of enabled repositories in the system.
$ sudo yum repolist
Loaded plugins: fastestmirror
Loading mirror speeds from cached hostfile
repo id repo name status
atomic/7/x86_64 CentOS-7 - atomic 137
centosplus/7/x86_64 CentOS-7 - centosplus 277
dotnet/7/x86_64 CentOS-7 - dotnet 395
extras/7/x86_64 CentOS-7 - extras 526
fasttrack/7/x86_64 CentOS-7 - fasttrack 44
os/7/x86_64 CentOS-7 - os 10,072
rt/7/x86_64 CentOS-7 - rt 227
updates/7/x86_64 CentOS-7 - updates 6,173
repolist: 17,851Try package installation to test if they are working.
$ sudo yum install vim wget
...
Transaction Summary
======================================================================================================================================================================================================
Install 2 Packages (+30 Dependent packages)
Total download size: 19 M
Installed size: 62 M
Is this ok [y/d/N]: yValidate if the installation was successful:
$ which vim
/usr/bin/vim
$ which wget
/usr/bin/wgetWhen a full OS upgrade is done, the CentOS default repositories are configured on the system. You can delete them by running the following commands:
sudo rm -rf /etc/yum.repos.d/CentOS-*That’s all. You now have working Vault repos working in your CentOS 7 Linux which is enjoying its retirement!. We hope this was helpful.
2 thoughts on “Fix CentOS 7 Repositories Not Working (2025)”
Hi guys,
Newbie to CentOS, yum, repos etc but needed to use CentOS as this was used for a course environment I’m following. Found this page, applied the fixes, worked like a dream.
Thanks a million!!!!
Thanks and welcome!