Hello all,

last Friday (Oct 15) I encountered a weird issue relating to the libxml2* packages.

I have a script which monitors the CentOS mirrors to find new packages. On Friday, these showed up:

libxml2-2.9.1-6.el7.5.i686.rpm libxml2-2.9.1-6.el7.5.x86_64.rpm libxml2-devel-2.9.1-6.el7.5.i686.rpm libxml2-devel-2.9.1-6.el7.5.x86_64.rpm libxml2-python-2.9.1-6.el7.5.x86_64.rpm libxml2-static-2.9.1-6.el7.5.i686.rpm libxml2-static-2.9.1-6.el7.5.x86_64.rpm

However, looking at Scientific Linux (https://scientificlinux.org/category/sl-errata/slsa-20213810-1/) and Red Hat Errata (https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2021:3810) it seems that CentOS is one release behind (el7.5 from CentOS vs. el7.6 for SL and RHEL).

Looking at my systems which have libxml2 packages installed, it gets even weirder:

$ rpm -q --queryformat '%{VERSION}-%{RELEASE}\t%{BUILDTIME}\t%{INSTALLTIME}\n' libxml2 2.9.1-6.el7.5 1601484919 1605352337

My system already has this exact release.

$ rpm -qi libxml2 Name : libxml2 Version : 2.9.1 Release : 6.el7.5 Architecture: x86_64 Install Date: Sa 14 Nov 2020 12:12:17 CET Signature : RSA/SHA256, Mi 14 Okt 2020 20:55:29 CEST, Key ID 24c6a8a7f4a80eb5 Source RPM : libxml2-2.9.1-6.el7.5.src.rpm Build Date : Mi 30 Sep 2020 18:55:19 CEST

The version which is now on the mirrors has a newer build date (Oct 14, 2021):

$ rpm -qp --queryformat '%{VERSION}-%{RELEASE}\t%{BUILDTIME}\t%{INSTALLTIME}\n' http://mirror.centos.org/centos/7/updates/x86_64/Packages/libxml2-2.9.1-6.el... 2.9.1-6.el7.5 1634214499 (none)

But its latest changelog entry does not match the latest changelog entry in the CentOS Git here: https://git.centos.org/rpms/libxml2/c/7219ebb7c53b80409f3f8fa3433d3ecf35665f...

So, to make a long story short: I believe there should be a el7.6 version of the libxml2* packages but instead we somehow have a repackaged el7.5 which is not up-to-date.

Kind regards, Steve