Yum disaster! DELETED mysql!

[Les Mikesell]

On Thu, 2005-11-10 at 07:36, David Mackintosh wrote:
> On Tue, Nov 08, 2005 at 09:59:59PM -0500, Nat Gross wrote:
> > Ok. Logged in under FC4 and doing a 511Meg yum update now.
> > I DO have the old fateful FC3 yum log. Can't copy it here yet (my nfs mounts
> > not working yet on the new fc4 upgraded server).
> > But one line of the log reads "installing mysql 3.x"). [Which it didn't.
> > Just dl'd the RPM's.]
> > And after that, two lines: 1. "erased mysql server". 2. "erased mysql
> > client".
> > If this ain't a bug, what is?
> 
> I know I'm a little late to the party here, but the same thing happened to me
> with a customer machine.  The sequence of events went something like this:
> 
> 1.  Install FC3.
> 2.  Install MySQL 4.1.11 RPMs from mysql.com
> 3.  Run 'yum -yd 2 update'
> 4.  Observe that the MySQL 4.1.11 pieces are gone, some of which have been
>     replaced by the FC3 3.23.x versions.
> 
> The root problem is that a non-distro RPM (I don't like this thread's
> calling them "non-standard" RPMs, as this RPM comes from MySQL
> directly) was in the system, and Yum didn't know what to do. 

It is a long-standing problem (at least as long as the fedora
repository has existed) that you can't mix things from different
sources because there is no agreement on names and versioning
conventions.  The fact that someone packaged it as an rpm
doesn't help by itself.

> Personally I don't think it did the right thing, but I accepted that
> the responsibility is mine for running yum.  

It isn't yum itself that is the problem - it is the lack of common
version information if you have installed RPMs from elsewhere.

> We don't run yum at all on this box anymore; and since the box is in
> a protected network, we don't see a need to seek out an alternative
> update mechanism.  

I'd recommend reading the changelogs of those updates you haven't
installed to see what you are missing.  Internet related security
bugs aren't the only ones being fixed.

-- 
   Les Mikesell
    lesmikesell at gmail.com