[Yum] Old packages not purged after yum update?

James Antill james-yum at and.org
Thu Jan 8 18:25:59 UTC 2009


denis <denisb+gmane at gmail.com> writes:

> Hi,
>
> I have a set of RHEL5.2 servers. They were installed with the exact same
> kickstart profile and the difference in setup is purely the time of
> install.
>
> During a routine check of the packages installed on a pair of these I
> discovered that the "older" server had old versions listed for various
> packages, snippet of the diff below :
>
> --- rpmlist.oldsrv	2009-01-08 15:45:05.072961519 +0100
> +++ rpmlist.newsrv	2009-01-08 15:45:09.239815270 +0100
> @@ -12,7 +12,6 @@
>  audit-libs-1.6.5-9.el5
>  audit-libs-python-1.6.5-9.el5
>  authconfig-5.3.21-3.el5
> -autofs-5.0.1-0.rc2.88
>  autofs-5.0.1-0.rc2.88.el5_2.1
>  bacula-client-2.0.3-10.el5
>  bacula-common-2.0.3-10.el5
> @@ -21,12 +20,9 @@
>  bc-1.06-21
>  beecrypt-4.1.2-10.1.1
>  bind-libs-9.3.4-6.0.2.P1.el5_2
> -bind-libs-9.3.4-6.P1.el5
>  bind-utils-9.3.4-6.0.2.P1.el5_2
> -bind-utils-9.3.4-6.P1.el5
>  binutils-2.17.50.0.6-6.el5
>  bzip2-1.0.3-4.el5_2
> -bzip2-libs-1.0.3-3
>  bzip2-libs-1.0.3-4.el5_2
>
> I found this a bit strange, these were simply set up and updated via yum
> update, the normal way.
> Checking the syslog confirms, with events like this :
>
> messages.3:Dec 19 10:08:45 oldsrv yum: Updated: bzip2-libs -
> 1.0.3-4.el5_2.x86_64

 Given it's x86_64 you might want to add the arch to your package
lists. For instance having an older bzip2-libs.i386 is not _as_ bad
as having two versions of the .x86_64 package.

> Is this a known issue? Is this even Yum related or RPM related?
> In case this is a known issue, is there an easy way to purge the old
> versions of said packages?

 It is a bug. It's not a known issue, and it's hard to say whether it
was yum or rpm that caused the bug. Both rpm and yum have had updates
for numerous bug fixes since 5.0 GA.
 For the cleanup you probably want to install yum-utils and run:

 package-cleanup --dupes --problems # This will show you problems
 package-cleanup --cleandupes       # This should auto fix any dup problems

-- 
James Antill -- james at and.org


More information about the Yum mailing list