Hi,

for our monitoring, we execute `zypper lu` without root privileges. I'm aware
this does not allow for refresh, but since we regularly run `zypper ref` as
root as part of another job anyways, this was never an issue for our use case.

Since some update in the last weeks (unfortunately cannot pin point which one),
this no longer works.

```
discourse01 (discourse):~ # zypper ref
Repository 'darix:apps' is up to date.
Repository 'openSUSE:infrastructure' is up to date.
Repository 'openSUSE:infrastructure:discourse' is up to date.
Repository 'repo-oss' is up to date.
Repository 'repo-update' is up to date.
All repositories have been refreshed.

discourse01 (discourse):~ # sudo -u monitor zypper --no-refresh lu
Error building the cache:
[darix:apps|http://download-prg.infra.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/darix:/apps/openSUSE_Tumbleweed/]
Valid metadata not found at specified URL
History:
 - Can't create /var/cache/zypp/raw/darix:apps

Warning: The metadata cache needs to be built for the 'darix:apps' repository.
You can run 'zypper refresh' as root to do this.
Warning: Skipping repository 'darix:apps' because of the above error.
Error building the cache:
[openSUSE:infrastructure|http://download-prg.infra.opensuse.org/repositories/openSUSE:/infrastructure/openSUSE_Tumbleweed/]
Valid metadata not found at specified URL
History:
 - Can't create /var/cache/zypp/raw/openSUSE:infrastructure

Warning: The metadata cache needs to be built for the 'openSUSE:infrastructure'
repository. You can run 'zypper refresh' as root to do this.
Warning: Skipping repository 'openSUSE:infrastructure' because of the above
error.
Error building the cache:
[openSUSE:infrastructure:discourse|http://download-prg.infra.opensuse.org/repositories/openSUSE:/infrastructure:/discourse/openSUSE_Tumbleweed/]
Valid metadata not found at specified URL
History:
 - Can't create /var/cache/zypp/raw/openSUSE:infrastructure:discourse

Warning: The metadata cache needs to be built for the
'openSUSE:infrastructure:discourse' repository. You can run 'zypper refresh' as
root to do this.
Warning: Skipping repository 'openSUSE:infrastructure:discourse' because of the
above error.
Error building the cache:
[repo-oss|http://download-prg.infra.opensuse.org/tumbleweed/repo/oss] Valid
metadata not found at specified URL
History:
 - Can't create /var/cache/zypp/raw/repo-oss

Warning: The metadata cache needs to be built for the 'repo-oss' repository.
You can run 'zypper refresh' as root to do this.
Warning: Skipping repository 'repo-oss' because of the above error.
Error building the cache:
[repo-update|http://download-prg.infra.opensuse.org/update/tumbleweed/] Valid
metadata not found at specified URL
History:
 - Can't create /var/cache/zypp/raw/repo-update

Warning: The metadata cache needs to be built for the 'repo-update' repository.
You can run 'zypper refresh' as root to do this.
Warning: Skipping repository 'repo-update' because of the above error.
Some of the repositories have not been refreshed because of an error.
Loading repository data...
Reading installed packages...
No updates found.
```

Refresh with `--force` does not help either.

The directories do exist:

```
discourse01 (discourse):~ # ls -al /var/cache/zypp/raw/
total 28
drwxr-x--- 7 root root 4096 Jun  4 18:53 .
drwxr-xr-x 5 root root 4096 May 14 12:21 ..
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 Jun  4 18:50 darix:apps
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 Jun  4 18:50 openSUSE:infrastructure
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 Jun  4 18:50 openSUSE:infrastructure:discourse
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 Jun  4 18:50 repo-oss
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 Jun  4 18:50 repo-update
```

On Leap 15.5, this still works as expected:

```
falkor21 (Hypervisor):~ # sudo -u monitor zypper lu
Repository                       : Time since last refresh
openSUSE:infrastructure          : 17 h 32 min
openSUSE:infrastructure:physical : 17 h 32 min
repo-backports-update            : 17 h 32 min
repo-oss                         : 2 D 4 h
repo-sle-update                  : 17 h 32 min
repo-update-oss                  : 17 h 32 min


    Note: Running with user privileges. From time to time run 'zypper refresh'
as root to make sure
    the repository metadata are complete and up-to-date.

Loading repository data...
Reading installed packages...
< list of pending updates >
```

Any ideas?
Would be great to avoid having to run our monitoring check as root on
Tumbleweed now.

Cheers,
Georg

Downstream ticket for reference: https://progress.opensuse.org/issues/161777