EPEL-Repository is wrongly removed during conversion

[alexgit2k]

During converting Rocky Linux 9.4 to RHEL 9.4 the package epel-release-9-8.el9.noarch containing the configuration for the EPEL-Repository is also removed:

========== Info (No changes needed) ==========
(INFO) REMOVE_SPECIAL_PACKAGES::SPECIAL_PACKAGES_REMOVED - Special packages to be removed
     Description: We have identified installed packages that match a pre-defined list of packages that are to be removed during the conversion
     Diagnosis: The following packages will be removed during the conversion: rocky-gpg-keys-9.4-1.7.el9.noarch, epel-release-9-8.el9.noarch, rocky-release-9.4-1.7.el9.noarch, rocky-repos-9.4-1.7.el9.noarch
     Remediations: N/A

As EPEL (Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux) provides packages for RHEL it should not be removed.
https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/epel/#what_is_extra_packages_for_enterprise_linux_or_epel says:

Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux (EPEL) is an initiative within the Fedora Project to provide high quality additional packages for CentOS Stream and Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL).

Workaround
Execute afterwards (see https://www.redhat.com/en/blog/install-epel-linux):

sudo subscription-manager repos --enable codeready-builder-for-rhel-9-$(arch)-rpms
sudo dnf install https://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/epel-release-latest-9.noarch.rpm

[bocekm]

Thanks for the bug report, @alexgit2k! I agree, it's a third party package and convert2rhel intends to not touch third party packages. Moreover, RHEL users oftentimes use the EPEL repository, finding there packages they miss in RHEL repos.
Nevertheless, I'll discuss this further with the team if there are any drawbacks in leaving the package as is during the conversion and will let you know.