[SOLVED] How can yum download packages from a non-existent base URL?

Issue

In order to get the Chrome browser running on RHEL 7.5 I found this yum repo file that helped me install the required package:

[google-chrome]
name=google-chrome
baseurl=http://dl.google.com/linux/chrome/rpm/stable/x86_64
enabled=1
gpgcheck=1
gpgkey=https://dl.google.com/linux/linux_signing_key.pub

Now the installation via yum install google-chrome worked perfectly fine, but I wonder how that's possible, because the baseurl (and any shorter path segment of it) returns an error "404 Not Found". How is it possible that yum downloads packages given this repo file?

Solution

It looks like google just return a 404 rather than a directory listing.

If you browse directly to: https://dl.google.com/linux/chrome/rpm/stable/x86_64/repodata/repomd.xml the correct xml file is downloaded and behaves normally. I'd guess if you put the full & correct path to a given .rpm you would be able to download that manually as well.

Answered By - user3788685

Answer Checked By - Clifford M. (WPSolving Volunteer)