[CentOS] Update issue - tar package problem?

[Tom Brown]

> Somehow it is NOT in the rpm database ... that is why yum thinks it is
> not there.
>
> This could also happen accidentally with multilib installs (it looks
> like you do have this possible issue).
>
> When a system is installed in c5, the default behavior is that both i386
> and x86_64 packages are installed.  It looks like you have removed the
> i386 packages as a rpm -q tar shows only one package (I do this too ...
> I think it is a good idea).  There is a potential problem though ...
> both versions of tar (the i386 and x86_64 versions) provide /bin/tar ...
> when removing the i386 version, sometimes the database will remove
> /bin/tar from the list of installed packages even though the x86_64
> version is still installed.
>
> This can lead to the same kind of issue that you had ... and it is
> possible to get it silently.  So, I will add a .rpmmacros entry to root
> so that rpm -qa also shows "E-V-R.<arch>", remove all i[3,4,5,6]86
> packages, then I make an entry to exclude multilib like this in yum.conf:
>
> multilib_policy=best
>
> Then I reinstall all x86_64 packages that had i386 packages removed (I
> create a list before I remove them).
>
> So, if you are doing "rpm -e tar.i386" (I suspect you are since there is
> only one currently installed) ... that might also be the source of the
> problem.
>
> This is no longer a problem in CentOS-6 as anaconda does not install
> i386 packages on x86_64 installs by default ... but they are installed
> by default on CentOS-5.

from memory i have not deliberately removed the i386 package, but you
are right it is not there, however rpm does seem to know about
/bin/tar

# rpm -ql tar
/bin/gtar
/bin/tar
<snip>

although i agree its something rpm db related as reinstalling tar via
rpm rather than yum solves the problem, however i dont see how this
situation has arisen.