Bug 1214634

Description of problem:
There are two problems occurring for HPE as a result of the content provided in the provided zypper repo file:
 
fingal01:~ # cat /etc/zypp/repos.d/ALP-Dolomite-1.0.repoetc/zypp/repos.d/ALP-Dolomite-1.0.repo
[ALP-Dolomite-1.0]
name=ALP Dolomite 1.0 Repository
enabled=1
autorefresh=1
baseurl=https://updates.suse.com/SUSE/Products/ALP-Dolomite/1.0/$basearch/product/

First, certain transactional-update command usages will proactively try to check for updates and because the lab firewalls block external access, will encounter long delays and subsequent error messages.  I will note that the majority of testers inside HPE are not instructed to use proxies to resolve issues like this:

fingal01:~ # unset NO_PROXY HTTPS_PROXY HTTP_PROXY
fingal01:~ # transactional-update grub.cfg
Checking for newer version.
     < long delay here >
Problem retrieving files from 'ALP Dolomite 1.0 Repository'.
Timeout exceeded when accessing 'https://updates.suse.com/SUSE/Products/ALP-Dolomite/1.0/x86_64/product/repodata/repomd.xml'.
Timeout reached Curl error (28)
Please see the above error message for a hint.
Some of the repositories have not been refreshed because of an error.
transactional-update 4.2.1 started
Options: grub.cfg
Separate /var detected.

The transactional-update command in this case eventually performs the requested update of grub.cfg.  However, the delay and the messaging that indicates an error will inevitably be reported as a bug by our testers.

The problem case above could be avoided by for example discarding the supplied
repo file /etc/zypp/repos.d/ALP-Dolomite-1.0.repo or using --no-selfupdate ... however that workaround does not provide a method to installed needed packages and/or install rpm packages that have dependencies. 

fingal01:~ # transactional-update --no-selfupdate pkg install /root/amsd-3.3.0-1773.7.sles15.x86_64.rpm 
transactional-update 4.2.1 started
Options: --no-selfupdate pkg install /root/amsd-3.3.0-1773.7.sles15.x86_64.rpm
Separate /var detected.
2023-08-25 11:17:21 tukit 4.2.1 started
2023-08-25 11:17:21 Options: -c9 open 
2023-08-25 11:17:22 Using snapshot 9 as base for new snapshot 10.
2023-08-25 11:17:22 Syncing /etc of previous snapshot 7 as base into new snapshot "/.snapshots/10/snapshot"
2023-08-25 11:17:22 SELinux is enabled.
ID: 10
2023-08-25 11:17:23 Transaction completed.
Calling zypper install
2023-08-25 11:17:26 tukit 4.2.1 started
2023-08-25 11:17:26 Options: callext 10 zypper -R {} install /root/amsd-3.3.0-1773.7.sles15.x86_64.rpm 
2023-08-25 11:17:27 Executing `zypper -R /tmp/transactional-update-f2QqDD install /root/amsd-3.3.0-1773.7.sles15.x86_64.rpm`:
Loading repository data...
Reading installed packages...
Resolving package dependencies...

Problem: nothing provides 'libjson-c.so.3()(64bit)' needed by the to be installed amsd-3.3.0-1773.7.sles15.x86_64
 Solution 1: do not install amsd-3.3.0-1773.7.sles15.x86_64
 Solution 2: break amsd-3.3.0-1773.7.sles15.x86_64 by ignoring some of its dependencies

Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):
Milestone 3

How reproducible:
Each time example transactional-update commands are used at HPE

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Delay and error message result from: transactional-update grub.cfg
2. Inability to install rpm packages with dependencies using transactional-update pkg install

Actual results:
As noted in problem description above

Expected results:
No such problems

Additional info:
In bug 1208390 I reported in essence this same issue, which was resolved:

| If your repos are non-functional, the correct solution for your problem is to
| disable the repos.

I accepted that for my own testing at the time, but the solution is really incomplete to meet goals such as dependency resolution when packages are installed.  I suggest the solution is that we need to mirror the pre-release repo by the same means we mirror for example the iso itself.