[CentOS] Re: Yum breaks after updating to CentOS 4.6

[Johnny Hughes]

Axel Thimm wrote:
> On Mon, Dec 31, 2007 at 12:41:52AM -0600, Johnny Hughes wrote:
>> Akemi Yagi wrote:
>>> On Dec 30, 2007 8:53 PM, Devraj Mukherjee <devraj at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> Hi everyone,
>>>>
>>>> Yum on one my CentOS systems has decided to stop functioning after an
>>>> upgrade to CentOS 4.6. It's complaining about errors with
>>>> Python-SQLite packages?
>>>>
>>>> Any ideas anyone? Here is what happens.
>>>>
>>>> [root at monk var]# yum search zaptel
>>>> Setting up repositories
>>>> Reading repository metadata in from local files
>>>> Traceback (most recent call last):
>>>>   File "/usr/bin/yum", line 29, in ?
>>>>     yummain.main(sys.argv[1:])
>>>>   File "/usr/share/yum-cli/yummain.py", line 102, in main
>>>>     result, resultmsgs = do()
>>>>   File "/usr/share/yum-cli/cli.py", line 545, in doCommands
>>>>     return self.search()
>>>>   File "/usr/share/yum-cli/cli.py", line 1129, in search
>>>>     for (po, matched_value) in matching:
>>>>   File "__init__.py", line 1157, in searchGenerator
>>>>   File "sqlitesack.py", line 52, in returnSimple
>>>>   File "sqlitesack.py", line 273, in getPackageDetails
>>>>   File "sqlitesack.py", line 403, in db2class
>>>>   File "/var/tmp/python-sqlite-root//usr/lib/python2.3/site-packages/sqlite/main.py",
>>>> line 97, in __getattr__
>>>> AttributeError: LOCATION_BASE
>>> Take a look at this thread (an answer from Johnny Hughes for the same question):
>>>
>>> http://lists.centos.org/pipermail/centos/2007-December/091669.html
>>>
>>> Akemi
>> OK .. it seems that ATRPMS (a 3rd party repo) has a version of yum in
>> the EL4 repo that breaks centos 4:
>>
>> http://atrpms.net/dist/el4/yum/
> 
> Hm, why does that break CentOS4? It works fine here on RHEL4. We
> should find the cause and fix it.

Maybe the breakage is caused by something like yum-metadata-parser or
some of the yum plugins that are written for the older version of yum.

> 
>> If you use *_ANY_* 3rd party repo *_IMHO_* you *_MUST_* use the
>> yum-priorities (or yum-plugin-priorities for CentOS-4) plugin to prevent
>> things like this from happening:
>>
>> http://wiki.centos.org/PackageManagement/Yum/Priorities
> 
> Well, allow me to present a different view: As a third party repo
> maintainer I can't support all possible
> priority/weighing/protectbase/etc. filtering and reordering mechanisms
> out there. These selective/partial enablement or repos have caused far
> more bugs that they solved (like not downloading the proper part of
> the dependencies needed for some functionality) - and all bugs are of
> personal nature to the reporter as they depend on how they configured
> their filtering.

Well ... that is true.  However the user should only need to worry about
that if there is a conflict.

I recommend the same plugin if using the CentOSPlus repo too (and I
maintain that so this was/is not directed at ATRPMS singularly), as I
just do not want to replace base packages unless is absolutely necessary.

The whole purpose of CentOS is a stable base, and packages that replace
base packages should be individually thought about only replaced if
absolutely necessary.

Just like you can not support every filtering mechanism when used in
conjunction with every third party repo, CentOS can not support problems
caused by replacing base packages ... so replacement should be a last
resort kind of thing.

This is just my opinion ... and again not directed at any particular 3rd
party repo.

> 
> So the recommendation from ATrpms is to *not* use such mechanisms. And
> the successor of ATrpms is working on mechanisms to allow this to
> happen for a set of filtering profiles on a server side (e.g. offer a
> full and a non-replacing subrepo), so that the repo maintainers can
> actually know what the two different user profiles are using and even
> replicate this on their systems.
> 
> Short story: Compatibility between repos must be coordinated by
> humans, not yum plugins, and in this case I'll move the yum package
> away into the "bleeding" area until we figure out what is causing the
> CentOS4 extra packages vs ATrpms incompatibility (and it could be that
> priorities are actually causing this bug, as this yum needs some more
> dependencies that the old one - if it had been a general issue there
> would be far more CentOS/SL/RHEL4 users crying out).
> 

Everyone is entitled to their own opinion ... mine is that the yum from
CentOS is a critical package and should not be replaced with out a very,
very good reason.  Yours is different.  Neither is right or wrong ...
they are just different approaches.

Thanks,
Johnny Hughes

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