[RHEL 8] Reposync --newest-only (-n) fails to sync all necessary packages and modules

Environment

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8

Issue

• After using reposync with -n or --newest-only, yum fails with Error opening file for checksum:

    Error opening file for checksum: /repo/rhel-8-for-x86_64-appstream-rpms/Packages/r/rhnsd-5.0.35-3.module+el8+2754+6a08e8f4.x86_64.rpm
  

• RHEL 8.0 and 8.1 reposync failed to download the modules in addition to the latest packages.

• Why does reposync --newest-only download multiple versions of a package?

Resolution

Ensure your system is using the latest yum-utils available in order to resolve commonly seen issues.

• This content is not included.RHBZ#1775434 is resolved by: Errata RHBA-2020:1823.

• This content is not included.RHBZ#1833074 is resolved by RHEA-2020:4510.

Root Cause

With the --newest flag, reposync will pull

1 - All the highest EVRA's for each non-modular RPM (Everything without a ".module" in it's N)
2 - All the rpms from the latest versions of all module streams (It takes each module stream, and grabs the artifacts from the latest module version)
3 - All RPMs from all module streams (artifacts) with the highest EVRAs

                              +------------------+  +------------------+
                              |                  |  |                  |
                              |    module-a-1    |  |    module-a-2    |
                              |                  |  |                  |
                              +---------+--------+  +---------+--------+
                                        |                     |
                                        v                     v
+-----------+  +-----------+  +---------+--------+  +---------+--------+
|           |  |           |  |                  |  |                  |
|   rpm-3   |  |   rpm-1   |  |   rpm-4.module   |  |   rpm-3.module   |
|           |  |           |  |                  |  |                  |
+-----------+  +-----------+  +------------------+  +------------------+

"newest" meaning the highest EVRA

rpm-3 = Due to it being the "newest" non-modular RPM
rpm-3.module = Due to it being the latest artifact in the "newest" module version
rpm-4.module = Due to it being the "newest" artifact in all module streams

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