Re: Yum problem

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On 27/10/2007, Claude Jones <cjones@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> > Hyperbole.
> >
> that's a high horse you ride

Why? In the context of this thread, the recommendation not to use "yum
-y" is beyond my comprehension. With dozens of updates every week, the
Fedora Project is doing a disservice if the users are expected to
decide themselves if any update package (or combination of multiple
updates) is bad, if the users are expected to decide on that prior to
installing an update set, and if updates can be disastrous. Perhaps
some users would find it suspicious if yum said it wants to remove
packages "rpm, rpm-python, yum" without mentioning any obvious
replacements. But that's a very weird scenario. The OP has lost yum,
rpm, possibly together with parts of the RPM database. Mission
objective is to find out how that has happened.

> > The "(y/n)?" check during a pretty normal "yum -y update"
> > comes very early, even before downloading the packages and
> > also prior to the crucial transaction check. It is safe to use
> > the normal "yum -y update" mode, provided that yum doesn't
> > suffer from a serious bug.
>
> indeed...
>
> there was one of those as I recall in the past months, though the
> details escape my memory at the moment

Stock Fedora 7 included a Yum that installed packages without
resolving all dependencies, resulting in a multitude of problems at
run-time. Lots of bug reports. Lots of users that haven't had any
chance to notice any problem prior to the y/n confirmation, because it
isn't easy to notice such a problem. Even for very experienced users
it would be very unlikely that they could notice a problem like that
without examining packages at a lower level before installing them.

> there have been many reportings of issues with automated
> updating - it is not easy, but, it is possible to do things that
> will cause disaster even on updates -- read all the 'helpful'
> posts out there about enabling/disabling repos using text
> editing, for example - enable rawhide and forgot to turn it back
> off using such techniques, and see what can happen...

Congratulations for finding a single case where a messed up Yum
configuration file would result in an unattended distribution upgrade.
;)  Seriously, one of the primary reasons why people shoot themselves
into their feet is that they don't put to good effect a (y/n)
confirmation prompt. I've given "rpm --force ..." and "rpm --nodeps
..." as very good examples already. There are many other even more
dangerous commands. I've seen users who have removed important files
of their RPM database after they had been told to do just "rm
/var/lib/rpm/__db*" (and yes, by default there is an interactive alias
for rm).


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