Issued:
2011-12-06
Updated:
2011-12-06

RHBA-2011:1702 - yum bug fix and enhancement update

Synopsis

yum bug fix and enhancement update

Type/Severity

Bug Fix Advisory (none)

Topic

An updated yum package that fixes several bugs and adds three enhancements is now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.

Description

Yum is a command line utility that allows a user to check for and automatically download and install updated RPM packages. It automatically obtains and downloads dependencies, prompting the user for permission as necessary.

This update fixes the following bugs:

  • When uninstalling a package, the "yum remove" command may have previously reported success even when the package could not be removed due to an error in the %pre scriptlet. With this update, this error has been fixed, and when yum fails to remove a package, it no longer claims that it succeeded. (BZ#661962)

  • When running the "yum -v repolist" command, the previous version of the yum utility may have incorrectly displayed a duplicate "Repo-baseurl" line for a repository with no mirrors. This update applies a patch that corrects this error, and the output of the "yum -v repolist" command no longer contains duplicate lines. (BZ#697885)

  • Previously, an attempt to install a package that was larger than 4 GB on a 32-bit architecture caused yum to terminate unexpectedly with a traceback. With this update, the underlying source code has been adapted to work around this problem, and packages larger than 4 GB can now be installed as expected. (BZ#704600)

  • Prior to this update, running a yum command with the "--installroot" command line option caused it to report the following warning:

    Ignored option -c (probably due to merging -yc != -y -c)

This update adapts the underlying source code not to display this warning when the "--installroot" option is in use, resolving this issue. (BZ#707358)

  • Under certain circumstances, an attempt to use the RepoStorage API may have failed with an AttributeError. With this update, this error has been fixed, and the RepoStorage API can now be used as expected. (BZ#727574)

  • Previously, the repodiff utility used a stale metadata cache in subsequent runs. When two repodiff commands were executed in succession, the second run reused cached data from the first. This bug has been fixed and repodiff now properly validates the metadata if a connection cannot be established or the cached data are about to be reused. (BZ#727586)

  • Prior to this update, when the "yum -q history addon-info last saved_tx" command was used to store transaction data in a file, an attempt to supply this file to the "yum load-transaction" command in order to repeat the transaction failed with an error, because the output contained extra lines. This update corrects the underlying source code to make sure the "yum -q history addon-info last saved_tx" command produces valid output, and adapts "yum load-transaction" to accept older version of the output as well. (BZ#728253)

  • In very rare cases, the yum utility may have incorrectly kept using old updateinfo, pkgtags, and groups metadata. When this happened, users may have been unaware of available updates for up to 6 hours. This update applies a patch that prevents yum from using outdated metadata, resolving this issue. (BZ#733391)

As well, this update adds the following enhancements:

  • The "yum history" command has been adapted to store and display yumdb and rpmdb information, such as from which repository was a particular package installed. (BZ#662243)

  • The "yum update" command can now be used to update a package to a specific version. (BZ#728526)

  • The yum utility no longer asks the user to report a bug when the dependency solver (depsolve) encounters an error. (BZ#694401)

All users of yum are advised to upgrade to this updated package, which fixes these bugs and adds these enhancements.

Solution

Before applying this update, make sure all previously-released errata relevant to your system have been applied.

This update is available via the Red Hat Network. Details on how to use the Red Hat Network to apply this update are available at This content is not included.https://access.redhat.com/kb/docs/DOC-11259

Affected Products

ProductVersionArch
Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Scientific Computing6x86_64
Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, big endian6ppc64
Red Hat Enterprise Linux for IBM z Systems6s390x
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation6x86_64
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation6i386
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server6x86_64
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server6i386
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server from RHUI6x86_64
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server from RHUI6i386
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - Extended Life Cycle Support6x86_64
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - Extended Life Cycle Support6i386
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - Extended Life Cycle Support Extension6x86_64
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - Extended Life Cycle Support Extension6i386
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - Extended Life Cycle Support Extension (for IBM z Systems)6s390x
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - Extended Life Cycle Support (for IBM z Systems)6s390x
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop6x86_64
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop6i386

Updated Packages

  • yum-cron-3.2.29-22.el6.noarch.rpm
  • yum-3.2.29-22.el6.src.rpm
  • yum-3.2.29-22.el6.noarch.rpm

Fixes

CVEs

(none)

References

(none)

Additional information