[Yum-devel] RPM Rollbacks

Fri Apr 3 19:36:54 UTC 2009

Hi All.

Seth Vidal in this older mail  chain below, has mentioned that 
RPM no longer supports rollback.

Is this really TRUE, I would like to know the reason why its NOT supported.

I think, RPM currently supports
--AUTOMATIC ROLLBACK OF A TRANSACTION.
ie, what I mean is, if you have multiple package installs/erases within 1 single RPM transaction, then if there is a failure,
for any package install/erase, then prior to failure, whatever other packages that were installed/erased, will be undone. Can someone please confirm this.

Also there is this old link below, that talks about RPMs Rollback feature::
http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/7034

It does say that for upgrade, if repackage option is enabled, then older version of package, including config files, and install scripts will be backed up, under repackage directory(/var/spool/repackage).

So later you can go back to older version, by running this command,
rpm -Uvh --rollback '2 hours ago'

The above URL is 5 years old, and I have RPM 4.4.2.3 version on my Fedora.

So my Qs is, are there issues with RPM rollback feature, as far as when it comes up reverting back to old config files under /etc, and/or if the RPM post/pre scripts create user/system accounts , are there issues undoing those accounts.
Are these the kind of issues, that still linger wrt to ROLLBACK feature.

And as far as AUTOMATIC ROLLBACK, if there is a failure within a single transaction(that has multiple packages), does that feature work fine. OR is that feature also plagued by issues such as reverting config files changes and/or other stuff done from post/pre RPM scripts.

Can someone please let me know.

Thanks very much.

Regards,

Sudha

--- On Sun, 2/15/09, yum-request at lists.baseurl.org <yum-request at lists.baseurl.org> wrote:

From: yum-request at lists.baseurl.org <yum-request at lists.baseurl.org>
Subject: Yum Digest, Vol 67, Issue 8
To: yum at lists.baseurl.org
Date: Sunday, February 15, 2009, 12:00 PM

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Today's Topics:

   1. Re: Welcome to the "Yum" mailing list (pranjal pandit)
   2. Re: Welcome to the "Yum" mailing list (seth vidal)
   3. Re: Welcome to the "Yum" mailing list (James Williams)
   4. Re: Welcome to the "Yum" mailing list (seth vidal)

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Message: 1
Date: Sat, 14 Feb 2009 20:26:03 +0530
From: pranjal pandit <pranjal5215 at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Yum] Welcome to the "Yum" mailing list
To: yum at lists.baseurl.org
Message-ID:
	<32793db80902140656t4833589bk96a8e073d0738a04 at mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

Hello,
I am willing to contribute for supporting of rollbacks in the packagekit
project with has yum as one of the backends.
I have already joined the packagekit mailing list and I need to know what
kind of work needs to be done for rollback support with yum as backend.

--Regards
--Pranjal Pandit
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Message: 2
Date: Sat, 14 Feb 2009 12:01:02 -0500
From: seth vidal <skvidal at fedoraproject.org>
Subject: Re: [Yum] Welcome to the "Yum" mailing list
To: "Yellowdog Updater, Modified" <yum at lists.baseurl.org>
Message-ID: <1234630862.1894.329.camel at rosebud>
Content-Type: text/plain

On Sat, 2009-02-14 at 20:26 +0530, pranjal pandit wrote:
> Hello,
> I am willing to contribute for supporting of rollbacks in the
> packagekit project with has yum as one of the backends.
> I have already joined the packagekit mailing list and I need to know
> what kind of work needs to be done for rollback support with yum as
> backend.  
>  

Rollbacks aren't supported in rpm any longer, either. I think you'll
find that there is a lot more complexity to rollbacks than you initial
think.

-sv

------------------------------

Message: 3
Date: Sun, 15 Feb 2009 03:30:02 +0000
From: James Williams <jwilliams1010 at hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Yum] Welcome to the "Yum" mailing list
To: <yum at lists.baseurl.org>
Message-ID: <BLU108-W40EA0B2A0040B6D006157CADB60 at phx.gbl>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="windows-1252"

Hi,

  I found rpmrebuild which I use to create an rpm prior to running yum.
If I need to "rollback" then I have to delete the rpm and install the
one that
was saved from during rpmrebuild.

Jim> From: skvidal at fedoraproject.org> To: yum at lists.baseurl.org> Date:
Sat, 14 Feb 2009 12:01:02 -0500> Subject: Re: [Yum] Welcome to the
"Yum" mailing list> > On Sat, 2009-02-14 at 20:26 +0530, pranjal
pandit wrote:> > Hello,> > I am willing to contribute for supporting
of rollbacks in the> > packagekit project with has yum as one of the
backends.> > I have already joined the packagekit mailing list and I need
to know> > what kind of work needs to be done for rollback support with
yum as> > backend. > > > > Rollbacks aren't supported in
rpm any longer, either. I think you'll> find that there is a lot more
complexity to rollbacks than you initial> think.> > -sv> > >
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Message: 4
Date: Sat, 14 Feb 2009 23:30:26 -0500
From: seth vidal <skvidal at fedoraproject.org>
Subject: Re: [Yum] Welcome to the "Yum" mailing list
To: "Yellowdog Updater, Modified" <yum at lists.baseurl.org>
Message-ID: <1234672226.1894.330.camel at rosebud>
Content-Type: text/plain

On Sun, 2009-02-15 at 03:30 +0000, James Williams wrote:
> Hi,
>  
>   I found rpmrebuild which I use to create an rpm prior to running
> yum.
> If I need to "rollback" then I have to delete the rpm and
install the
> one that
> was saved from during rpmrebuild.

And none of this will help if your data has changed as a result of the
upgrade.

-sv

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