Updates to Alma Linux only after payment?

Hi, I installed Alma 8.4 in a VM. When I try to update I can see that there are updates but I can’t get them as long as I don’t register at Getpagespeed in Russia. On that side it looks as if I also have to create an account at Paypal. What is going on? I thought it was foss-ware and free?

Working from the UK there are no such barriers. I just run dnf update and it does it. I’ve no experience of using Getpagespeed which seems from the front page to be some sort of website server. Why you should need to register is not clear unless there are peculiarly Russian restrictions/requirements. How are you hosting your VM? If it’s on your own metal then there should be no issues.

Thanks for the response. Under Debian 10.9 I use several Linux distro’s within VMware Workstation 15.5.6. I never had this problem with updating in other VM’s. This is the respons I get:

[root@localhost epsi]# dnf update
Updating Subscription Management repositories.
Unable to read consumer identity

This system is not registered to Subscription Management. You can use subscription-manager to register.

Last metadata expiration check: 0:40:20 ago on 2021-06-02T15:17:55 CEST.

Some packages in your transaction are brought to you by GetPageSpeed:

  • python3-dbus-1.2.8-8.el8.x86_64
  • python2-cairo-1.18.1-4.el8.x86_64
  • python3-gobject-3.34.0-3.el8.x86_64
  • python3-gobject-base-3.34.0-3.el8.x86_64
  • libv4l-1.18.0-2.el8.x86_64
  • smartmontools-1:7.1-7.el8.x86_64
  • brotli-1.0.9-1.el8.x86_64
  • python3-cairo-1.18.1-4.el8.x86_64
    To enable package installs, subscribe using the following link:

RPM repository subscription - GetPageSpeed

[root@localhost epsi]#

I use Linux just for fun. Pure hobby, not for work or enterprise.

Greets, Robert.

Is your VM hosted in Russia? There are two Russian mirror servers (mirror.yandex.ru and mirror.reconn.ru) but I can access them both just fine without any restrictions.

No, I use an old pc to run Debian 10.9. In Debian I run several linux distros within VMWare workstation 15.5.6. I never had to subscribe anywhere except now in Alma linux. I know Alma is a 1:1 copy of RHEL and in RHEL you don’t get updates until you register and pay for support. Mayby I ran into an old heritage of RHEL?
Greets:
AlmaMater.

Outlook voor iOS downloaden

Can you post a screenshot from the issue?

I will give it a try. It doesn’t matter if I update by means of the software app or by means of the terminal.
[root@172 epsi]# dnf update
Updating Subscription Management repositories.
Unable to read consumer identity

This system is not registered to Subscription Management. You can use subscription-manager to register.

Last metadata expiration check: 3:55:18 ago on 2021-06-02T15:17:55 CEST.

Some packages in your transaction are brought to you by GetPageSpeed:

  • python3-dbus-1.2.8-8.el8.x86_64
  • python2-cairo-1.18.1-4.el8.x86_64
  • python3-gobject-3.34.0-3.el8.x86_64
  • python3-gobject-base-3.34.0-3.el8.x86_64
  • libv4l-1.18.0-2.el8.x86_64
  • smartmontools-1:7.1-7.el8.x86_64
  • brotli-1.0.9-1.el8.x86_64
  • python3-cairo-1.18.1-4.el8.x86_64
    To enable package installs, subscribe using the following link:

RPM repository subscription - GetPageSpeed

[root@172 epsi]#

Error update alma 8.4

Greets:
AlmaMater

I did but everytime I copy and paste the output in a massage or include a picture than Alma thinks I am spamming and puts my reply in Akismet. Alma promisses to reply quickly but I am waiting several hours for respons.

Greets:
Alma Mater

@AlmaMater Thanks for letting us know. We will never require anyone to register anything or pay to get updates. Anyone claiming otherwise is just spreading FUD. We provide a rebuild of RHEL which relies on community sources, so unlike RHEL, updates are free.

That being said, you should not need to pay anything and we do not know why it is asking you to do so. This seems very fishy. Can you please provide more information on what you used for an installation source? If you used an iso can you please tell us which mirror you got it from? What are you using for updates that is giving you this message? You sould just be able to do dnf update to pull down updates. Also, can you please provide your yum configs so that we can see what sources you are pulling updates from?

This sounds like a very serious issue and we would like to get it resolved ASAP.

@AlmaMater You can also join us on our chat at https://chat.almalinux.org to chat with us in real time.

Dear Jack, since my retirement I spend more time with computing then before. My skills can be discribed as amateur-plus. Beside my Windows and Mac machine I bouhgt an old and heavy server with lots of cores, memory en hard disk. After experimenting I installed Debian 10 and inside Debian I created several VM’s with VMware Workstation. Each VM gets 6 cores, 8-16 gigs of ram and 40-100 gigs of harddrive space. I found Alam Linux at www.distrowatch.com. They showed me to download Alma fromhttps://repo-almalinux.org. Perhaps not so wise to do but untill now I never did a check of the so called download cheksum to be sure the download went OK. Until now I never ran into problems and I thought in case a would I only had to delete the VM. So after installing Alma in such a VM a came into trouble because I was not able to find upgrades, not with help of YUM, DNF or the software app. Maybe, I am not sure, I ticked a box inside anaconda that I was interested in third party software that could be non-free. I can’t recall that but in other systems I was not used to do that. Anyway, whenever I asked for updates I found a message that I had to register myself by means of the Subscription manager. I know that is something RHEL asks for. So I was brave and opened the link at the site of getpagespeed. Later I found that this company hosted repos for Cent OS. Immediatly I wnt to the site of the company in Russia on which I was told what the company coul do for me. At the botom of the page I had to tick a box by which I gave permission to use my IP-adress as my ID. Beneath this box was a only one button with the text subscribe. Thuis led me to a white page with a spinning circle and the oppertunity to make open my PayPal-account or to create one. Since I don’t have such an account and don’t want one I was given the chance to login as guest. Thus button led me to another white page in PayPal style and this showed me to pay Dollar 9.99 and to provide my name, e-mail, PO box etc. I went away from the site, provided no information. I sen a screenshot from this last page and hope that this respons is not again taken away to your anti-spam help program. As I wrote yesterday I found within the program “Software” a so called hamburger menu (upper corner right side) and ther I found a list of places from where updates could come. The list showed 4 instances from Getpagespeed. After disabeling all four I could download updates. The only small artifact that is left over is the fact that if I do upgrades by means of YUM or DNF, I do get updates butt still ther is a message that my indentity could not be checked and that I should use the subscriptionmanager and register.
This is the screenshot:


Being a dutchman I hope my english is good enough to make my point clear.

Greets:
Robert aka AlmaMater

@AlmaMater just uninstall the getspeed repository
You can run the following commands:
$sudo dnf erase getpagespeed-extras-release --noautoremove
$sudo dnf clean all

Should be ok after removing the getpagespeed repository

Regards
Leif

Hi, Leifh,
Thanks to the advise you gave all the entries in the hamburgermenu of the program ‘Software’ that regarded getpagespeed have disappeared. Still, in case of updating with the help of Terminal, there is a message that subscription management can’ t control my identity. See picture below. This persists, even after restarting. This is a small inconvenience and I accept this. So thanks for the assistance you gave. Have a nice day.
Greets:
AlmaMater.

You sure got a strange installation …

Could you post the output of the following commands:

#cat /etc/redhat-release

#dnf repolist

Could it be you have installed ‘dnf-plugin-subscription-manager’ ?

Could you run
#dnf erase dnf-plugin-subscription-manager (should only remove 1 package)

Leifh,
1st a picture of the output of the request for redhat release and repolist. In the list as said earlier getpagespeeds is removed.

Thereafter I gave the command you suggested. It seems that subscriptionmanager was present and now removed.

Now when I update the terminal way I don’ t get any more messages about subscription manager. Thanks.

Greetings:
AlmaMater
Now your system tells me that I can only upload one picture per message. So I put the second screenshot in a separate message.

Here is the screenshot:

There was an issue in CentOS 8, for some strange reason, some ISO images would install the subscription manager, which is a RHEL-only thing for registering RHEL systems. This should not be available in Alma or CentOS, or at least not be installed by default.

The request to pay for money to get updates, sounds like a scam. It seems the above Russian site is distributing modified ISO images?