Why does repo command fail to find android.git.kernel.org and how do I get work around the failure if I cannot upgrade repo?

Question

This answer points to the new repo command. The repo command points to the old site in older versions of repo. I have a shared Ubuntu 16 system where I was hesitant to update the repo command. How can point repo to the migrated repo at https://android.googlesource.com?

Answer 1

repo is just a Python script which has the correct url in the version I have on Ubuntu 18. Thus, a simple workaround is to just modify the URL in your script.

The failure is apparently a result of repo looking for its own repository so it can report if your current version is out of date (maybe it is used for other things?). My newer version of repo sets the URL differently:

1. The script looks for an environment variable named REPO_URL which, if set, overrides the location. If the variable is set, the script just uses it.
2. If the variable is not set, the script sets REPO_URL = 'https://gerrit.googlesource.com/git-repo'