[rhn-users] Updates server

["Alan R. Becker" <beckera mail-now com>]

I have, for several days, attempted unsuccessfully to 
contact the RedHat updates server (ftp://updates.redhat.com). 
It has been my practice to download the updates to a local 
storage server, where I can access them via network, or 
burn a CD, whatever.  This conserves both my bandwidth 
and RedHat's, and allows me to reasonably maintain servers 
that don't have a broadband connection (some are as low 
as a 33.6Kb modem).  

I just completed another test where I went to my storage
server and attempted to contact updates.redhat.com via 
ftp (no go), ping (nada), and then used command-line 
up2date to initiate some needed updates.  Watching 
/var/spool/up2date while the update was progressing, 
I saw rpms being downloaded from RedHat, and I could 
log into RHN from a browser, so I know that RHN is 
not down.  I also checked DNS and updates.redhat.com 
is still there.

I searched RedHat's site for any announcement regarding 
the updates server, to no avail.

Is the Redhat updates site temporarily down, or is it 
another victim of a business plan change??  If temporary, 
when should it be back on the air?  Do I need to look 
for a mirror to supply these rpms??  What is happening 
with this resource??

A. Becker