YUM CRASHES WILL BLOW AWAY CACHE DOWNLOADS. GUARANTEED!

[Dan Thurman]

On Tue, 2006-04-04 at 12:53 +0100, Paul Howarth wrote:
> Mike Cohler wrote:
> >> It appeared to me that the default cache retention behavior changed with
> >> FC5 (from FC4) and that you can turn retention back on by changing
> >> the /etc/yum.conf file.
> > 
> >> I ran into some dependency issues and sure enough, the next time I ran
> >> yum all the previous downloads were gone. I changed it to retain cache
> >> files and things worked as before.
> > 
> >> I don't have my FC5 system in front of me so I can't provide the exact
> >> config line that needs changing.
> > 
> >> Cheers, Greg.
> > 
> > Indeed the default behaviour has changed for FC5 but possibly unintentionally.
> > 
> > If you look at "man yum.conf" you will see that the default is for keepcache=1
> > in the file /etc/yum.conf but in fact the install gives keepcache=0
> > 
> > Quoting from the man page:
> > "
> > keepcache
> >               Either ‘1’ or ‘0’. Determines whether or not yum keeps the cache
> >               of  headers  and packages after succesful installation.  Default
> >               is ’1’ (keep files)
> > "
> > 
> > This means that the cache is cleaned out once yum has quit if set to zero (which
> > it is !)
> > 
> > If you change this to keepcache=1 then yum should have the same behaviour as in
> > FC4 i.e. to keep the rpms once downloaded.
> > 
> > This looks like a simple error when the isos were produced for release but no
> > doubt an expert will say if it was otherwise.
> 
> I don't think it's an error really. The "default" referred to in the yum 
> manpage is the default action yum will take if no "keepcache" entry is 
> present in the yum.conf file. The Fedora "default" is to have this 
> turned off, by specifying a keepcache=0 entry in the yum.conf file. Two 
> different defaults.
> 
> The no-caching behaviour is actually good for me because I have a local 
> mirror of the packages and update from that, so I don't have any use for 
> the cache. In fact, I always added a cron job to do "yum clean packages" 
> on a regular basis.
> 
> Paul.
> 

The whole point of my argument here, regardless of what the default
setting is, is that if you are an installer, and have to download
from the Internet which can be VERY SLOW. TIME CONSUMING, then you
don't want the cache to be blown away ESPECIALLY if there is a crash
because if you HAVE to have updates to fix previous problems, then
this can make it very difficult and time consuming to do updates
especially for a beginner or any installer for first time installs
followed by an upgrade.  I would *think* that we should make it easier
for these folks so that installation wont be as painful.  For EXPERTS
who do this for a living, THEY can set all the parameters to change
the default behavior because THEY would KNOW the INSIDES AND OUT of
these parameters whereas the beginner would have NO CLUE what is going
on and gets pissed of by the minute.  That is why I had to go get a
beer to calm down since I was ranting from rabies as one poster jokingly
stated.  WOOF! :-)

Dan