[Yum] Custom Package Installation Conflicts

[Jay]

Hi All,

Within our organisation we create custom RPMs that contain all the 
configuration files we commonly change in our environment 
(hosts,snmpd.conf,ntp.conf,krb5.conf).

Under CentOS 4 we made these custom RPMS available via a Yum repo and 
all worked fine.
A 'yum install <packagename>-configs' would install the package and our 
system would be automatically configured with everything we needed.

I have just started investigating moving to CentOS 5 and have 
encountered the following issue when trying to install our custom RPMS:

Preparing...                ########################################### 
[100%]
        file /etc/krb5.conf from install of 
"<packagename>-configs"-1.0-6 conflicts with file from package 
krb5-libs-1.5-17
        file /etc/pam.d/system-auth from install of 
"<packagename>-configs"-1.0-6 conflicts with file from package 
pam-0.99.6.2-3.14.el5
        file /etc/ntp.conf from install of "<packagename>-configs"-1.0-6 
conflicts with file from package ntp-4.2.2p1-5.el5
        file /etc/sudoers from install of "<packagename>-configs"-1.0-6 
conflicts with file from package sudo-1.6.8p12-10
        file /etc/init.d/snmpd from install of 
"<packagename>-configs"-1.0-6 conflicts with file from package 
net-snmp-5.3.1-14.el5
        file /etc/snmp/snmpd.conf from install of 
"<packagename>-configs"-1.0-6 conflicts with file from package 
net-snmp-5.3.1-14.el5


After doing some reading, it appears this restriction has been 
introduced into RPM and not Yum.
RPM allows you to use "--replacefiles" flag to ignore the conflicts and 
perform the install, which is something we feel comfortable doing.
The only problem is that Yum doesn't provide a mechanism to pass 
"--replacefiles" to RPM from what I can find.

After some more investigating, the only workaround I managed to find was 
in a posting to this mailing list where it was suggested that rather 
than attempting to install the files directly to their destination (ie 
/etc/ /etc/init.d/), I install them to /tmp/ and use 'cp' or 'mv' 
commands in the %post section to deploy them to their appropriate homes.

I have tested this method and it does indeed work, however I'd like to 
ask if this is the only way this can be achieved?
Will Yum ever provide the ability to pass the "--replacefiles" option?
Is there a better way this functionality can be achieved?

FYI
rpm-4.4.2-37.el5
yum-3.0.1-5.el5

Thanks all for your time
Jay