How to Fix “Cannot find a valid baseurl for repo” in CentOS

Read Time: 3 minsCategories CentOS, Questions 21 Comments

One of the commonest errors CentOS users encounter when using the YUM package manager (for example running the yum update command), especially on a freshly installed system is the “Cannot find a valid baseurl for repo: base/7/x86_64”.

This short article will show how to fix the “cannot find a valid baseurl for repo” error in the CentOS Linux distribution.

The following screenshot shows the above error after running a yum command to search for a package.

yum search redis
Cannot Find a Valid Baseurl for Repo Error
Cannot Find a Valid Baseurl for Repo Error

The error indicates that YUM is not capable of accessing the base repository that it uses to find package information. In most cases, there are two possible causes of the error: 1) network issues and/or 2) base URL being commented out in the repository configuration file.

You can fix this error in the following ways:

1. Make sure that your system is connected to the Internet. You can try to ping any internet direction, for example, google.com.

ping google.com
Ping a Host
Ping a Host

The ping result indicates either a DNS problem or no Internet connectivity. In this case, try to edit network interface configuration files. To identify your network interface, run the ip command.

ip add
Identify Network Interfaces
Identify Network Interfaces

To edit the configuration for interface enp0s8, open the file /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-enp0s8 as shown.

vi /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-enp0s8

If it is a DNS problem, try to add the Nameservers in the configuration file as shown.

DNS1=10.0.2.2 
DNS2=8.8.8.8

Then restart the Network Manager service with the systemctl command.

systemctl restart NetworkManager

For more information, read our article: How to Configure Network Static IP Address and Manage Services on RHEL/CentOS 7.0.

After making changes in the network settings, try to run a ping once more.

ping google.com
Ping a Host Again
Ping a Host Again

Now try to run the yum update or any yum command that was showing the above error, once more.

yum search redis
Search for a Package
Search for a Package

2. If the system is connected to the Internet and DNS is working fine, then there should be an issue with the repo configuration file /etc/yum.repos.d/CentOS-Base.repo.

Open the file using your favorite command-line editor.

vi /etc/yum.repos.d/CentOS-Base.repo

Look for the [base] section and uncomment the lines starting with baseurl by removing the leading # from the baseurl line. Update all instances of http://mirrorlist.centos.org to http://vault.centos.org, and also update http://mirror.centos.org to http://vault.centos.org

This is how the file looks like.

# CentOS-Base.repo
#
# The mirror system uses the connecting IP address of the client and the
# update status of each mirror to pick mirrors that are updated to and
# geographically close to the client.  You should use this for CentOS updates
# unless you are manually picking other mirrors.
#
# If the mirrorlist= does not work for you, as a fall back you can try the 
# remarked out baseurl= line instead.
#
#

[base]
name=CentOS-$releasever - Base
mirrorlist=http://vault.centos.org/?release=$releasever&arch=$basearch&repo=os&infra=$infra
baseurl=http://vault.centos.org/centos/$releasever/os/$basearch/
gpgcheck=1
gpgkey=file:///etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-CentOS-7

#released updates 
[updates]
name=CentOS-$releasever - Updates
mirrorlist=http://vault.centos.org/?release=$releasever&arch=$basearch&repo=updates&infra=$infra
baseurl=http://vault.centos.org/centos/$releasever/updates/$basearch/
gpgcheck=1
gpgkey=file:///etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-CentOS-7

#additional packages that may be useful
[extras]
name=CentOS-$releasever - Extras
mirrorlist=http://vault.centos.org/?release=$releasever&arch=$basearch&repo=extras&infra=$infra
baseurl=http://vault.centos.org/centos/$releasever/extras/$basearch/
gpgcheck=1
gpgkey=file:///etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-CentOS-7

#additional packages that extend functionality of existing packages
[centosplus]
name=CentOS-$releasever - Plus
mirrorlist=http://vault.centos.org/?release=$releasever&arch=$basearch&repo=centosplus&infra=$infra
baseurl=http://vault.centos.org/centos/$releasever/centosplus/$basearch/
gpgcheck=1
enabled=0
gpgkey=file:///etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-CentOS-7

Save the changes and close the file.

Now try to run the yum command again.

yum update

In this article, we have explained how to fix the “Cannot find a valid baseurl for repo:” error in CentOS 7. We would like to hear from you, and share your experience with us. You can also share solutions you know to fix this issue, via the feedback form below.

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Aaron Kili
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21 Comments

Leave a Reply

  1. Since CentOS 7 has reached its end of life (EOL), the mirrors have been moved to the vault. We need to update the CentOS-Base.repo file located in /etc/yum.repos.d/CentOS-Base.repo.

    1. Uncomment the lines starting with baseurl.
    2. Replace all instances of http://mirrorlist.centos.org with http://vault.centos.org.
    3. Replace all instances of http://mirror.centos.org with http://vault.centos.org.

    After making these changes, run:

    sudo yum update -y
    Reply

  2. This solution did not solve my issue of “Cannot find a valid baseurl for repo:” error in CentOS” any other suggestion.

    Reply

  4. Hello

    I fixed this error:

    Go to:

    1. /etc/yum.repos.d
    2. rename all files, except(CentOS-Base.repo ) to “old filename-“
    3. copy CentOS-Base.repo to CentOS-Base.repo-
    4. In CentOS-Base.repo I replace $releasever to 7
    5. run: yum update
    6. In /etc/yum.repos.d Linux ercovered some file with “-” siffix at step2, I rename back all files which not recovered
    7. In CentOS-Base.repo I replace 7 to $releasever
    8. again run: yum update
    Reply

      • @Arc,

        Here’s the step-by-step process for executing the commands you’ve provided:

        1. Navigate to the ‘/etc/yum.repos.d‘ directory:

        cd /etc/yum.repos.d

        2. Rename all files except ‘CentOS-Base.repo‘ to include the suffix ‘-oldfilename‘:

        for file in *; do
       if [ "$file" != "CentOS-Base.repo" ]; then
           mv "$file" "${file}-oldfilename"
       fi
   done

        3. Copy ‘CentOS-Base.repo` to ‘CentOS-Base.repo-‘:

        cp CentOS-Base.repo CentOS-Base.repo-

        4. Modify ‘CentOS-Base.repo‘ to replace ‘$releasever‘ with `7`:

        sed -i 's/$releasever/7/g' CentOS-Base.repo

        5. Update the repositories using ‘yum‘:

        yum update

        6. If Linux recovered some files with a '-' suffix during step 2, rename them back:

           for file in *; do
       if [[ "$file" == *-oldfilename ]]; then
           new_file=$(echo "$file" | sed 's/-oldfilename//')
           mv "$file" "$new_file"
       fi
   done

        7. Modify ‘CentOS-Base.repo‘ again to replace ‘7‘ with ‘$releasever‘:

        sed -i 's/7/$releasever/g' CentOS-Base.repo

        8. Run ‘yum update‘ again:

        yum update

        This script will execute the steps you’ve outlined, ensuring that the repository files are managed and updated as specified. Make sure to review the changes carefully before executing each command to avoid any unintended consequences.

        Reply

  7. I still get :

    [root@box ~]# yum update
Loaded plugins: fastestmirror
Determining fastest mirrors
YumRepo Error: All mirror URLs are not using ftp, http[s] or file.
 Eg. Invalid release/repo/arch combination/
removing mirrorlist with no valid mirrors: /var/cache/yum/addons/mirrorlist.txt
Error: Cannot find a valid baseurl for repo: addons
    Reply

  8. Hi, It may be caused by your anti-virus. I encounter the same issue on the avast premium. I enabled “Internet Connection Sharing mode” then it worked.

    Reply

  12. I still get the following error.

    http://mirror.centos.org/centos/7/os/x86_64/repodata/repomd.xml: [Errno 14] curl#7 - "Failed connect to mirror.centos.org:80; No route to host"

    Reply

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