[CentOS] Bugs in yum update

Tue Jan 13 11:18:37 UTC 2009
Tony Mountifield <tony at softins.clara.co.uk>

In article <gkgq6u$5fj$1 at ger.gmane.org>,
Mike -- EMAIL IGNORED <m_d_berger_1900 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> This is a continuation of the thread:
>    "yum update fails: CentOS 5.2".
> 
> I installed a fresh Centos 5.2 and ran yum update.
> 
> It ran correctly, except for these issues:
> 
> 1. As previously mentioned, after deciding what it
>    is going to do, It doesn't ask if its ok.  But
>    if I type y<enter> it reports:
>       Is this ok [y/N]: Downloading Packages:
> 
> 2. During the long period it is downloading files,
>    it doesn't print anything, giving the impression
>    that nothing is happening.  Watching the lights,
>    and using WireShark and ARIN, I determined that
>    it was downloading from the Rochester Institute
>    of Technology.  I decided that was good.  During
>    the install phase, the expected logging appeared.

This suggests that yum is not flushing output, possibly because
it doesn't think it's stdio is on a tty.

1. Were you running yum update locally on the console, or
remotely via a network connection of some kind, e.g. ssh?
If you do it as a direct command to ssh (ssh myhost yum update)
you might get those symptoms, unless you also give -t to ssh:
ssh -t myhost yum update

2. If you were on the console, were you piping the output of
yum through something else like tee? e.g.
yum update | tee mylogfile
If so, you might again get the same symptoms. If you want to
capture the output of the session, use the script command:

# script mylogfile
Script started, file is mylogfile
# yum update
# exit
Script done, file is mylogfile
# 

If neither of the above is applicable, please explain exactly what
you did, step by step, including what you might consider insignificant.

Cheers
Tony
-- 
Tony Mountifield
Work: tony at softins.co.uk - http://www.softins.co.uk
Play: tony at mountifield.org - http://tony.mountifield.org