[R] Problem with RHEL 5 repo and the latest R RPMs

[Hugh Brown]

Hi everyone -- I have a number of systems here running CentOS 5.2 and
5.3.  Recently, I tried adding a package unrelated to R and found that
yum is complaining about the R repo.  Here's the error I get when
running yum update:

    ----
    $ sudo yum update
    [snip]
    http://cran.r-project.org/bin/linux/redhat/el5/x86_64/repodata/primary.xml.gz: [Errno -3] Error performing checksum
    Trying other mirror.
    primary.xml.gz  2.9 kB     00:00
    http://cran.r-project.org/bin/linux/redhat/el5/x86_64/repodata/primary.xml.gz: [Errno -3] Error performing checksum
    Trying other mirror.
    Error: failure: repodata/primary.xml.gz from CRAN: [Errno 256] No more mirrors to try.
    ----

/etc/yum.conf has these lines:

    ----
    # PUT YOUR REPOS HERE OR IN separate files named file.repo
    # in /etc/yum.repos.d
    [CRAN]
    name=CRAN
    baseurl=http://cran.r-project.org/bin/linux/redhat/el5/x86_64
    ----

This error persists even after running "yum clean all" and "rm -f
/var/lib/rpm/__db.00? ; rpm --rebuilddb".  I've disabled the CRAN repo
and applied all available updates, and I still get these problems.
I've checked with the folks at CentOS, and they suggested contacting
the repo manager.

Looking at the repo itself, it seems that there's a new version that
was uploaded 10 days ago; I'm wondering if the new package or repo
files are causing me problems somehow.

Has anyone else had this problem?  Is there something I need to do to
make updates work?

Please let me know if you need any further information, or if there's
another person or mailing list I should be contacting.

Thanks in advance for any help!

--
Hugh Brown, Systems Manager
The Centre for High-Throughput Biology
hbrown at chibi.ubc.ca