Problem: conflicting requests - nothing provides redhat-release = 7 needed by epel-release-7-14.noarch

Question

One of the steps in how to "[Set up dynamic DNS on your Amazon Linux instance](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/dynamic-dns.html)" is:

> Enable the Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux (EPEL) repository to gain access to the noip2 client
:
```
sudo yum install https://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/epel-release-latest-7.noarch.rpm
```
But when I try that, I get the following error:
```
Last metadata expiration check: 19:41:08 ago on Sun Jun  4 14:41:10 2023.
epel-release-latest-7.noarch.rpm                                                                                                                  337 kB/s |  15 kB     00:00
Error:
 Problem: conflicting requests
  - nothing provides redhat-release >= 7 needed by epel-release-7-14.noarch
(try to add '--skip-broken' to skip uninstallable packages)
```

What is the **proper** way to fix this?

Accepted Answer

What AMI operating system are you using?  
If you are using Amazon Linux 2023, you cannot use the EPEL repository.  
https://docs.aws.amazon.com/linux/al2023/ug/compare-with-al2.html#epel  
> Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux (EPEL) is a project in the Fedora community with the objective of creating a large array of packages for enterprise-level Linux operating systems. The project has primarily produced RHEL and CentOS packages. Amazon Linux 2 features a high level of compatibility with CentOS 7. As a result, many EPEL7 packages work on Amazon Linux 2. However, AL2023 doesn't support EPEL or EPEL-like repositories.

Answer

EPEL is a third-party, community-driven repository targeting EL distros (RHEL, and its clones or hybrids). But starting with AL2023, AL is an independent distro that uses multiple upstreams. It's not directly compatible with RHEL, and therefore EPEL packages are unlikely to work with it.

References:

References:
* https://repost.aws/knowledge-center/ec2-enable-epel
* https://docs.aws.amazon.com/linux/al2023/ug/compare-with-al2.html#epel

Problem: conflicting requests - nothing provides redhat-release >= 7 needed by epel-release-7-14.noarch

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