RHBA-2014:1410 - Bug Fix Advisory

Topic

Updated yum packages that fix several bugs are now available for Red Hat
Enterprise Linux 6.

Description

Yum is a command-line utility that allows the user to check for updates and
automatically download and install updated RPM packages. Yum automatically
obtains and downloads dependencies, prompting the user for permission as
necessary.

This update fixes the following bugs:

• Previously, when the "yum history" command was executed and the

/var/lib/yum/history file was missing or empty, the yum utility terminated
unexpectedly. With this update, this situation is handled gracefully, and yum no
longer crashes. (BZ#875610)

• If the /var/lib/yum/yumdb file was not writable for some reason, the yum

utility terminated unexpectedly. With this update, this scenario is handled
gracefully, and yum no longer crashes. (BZ#883463)

• Previously, if the http_proxy and https_proxy environment variables were set

to an address and the "proxy=_none_" option was set in the repository
configuration, the yum utility ignored the repository proxy option and used the
proxy from the environment variables. A patch has been provided to fix this bug,
and the proxy repository configuration option now always overrides the
environment variables. (BZ#903634)

• Previously, "yum remove" and "yum grouplist" commands did not respect the

"skip_if_unavailable=1" repository property, and failed when the repository was
unavailable. As a consequence, the yum utility exited without completion. The
underlying source codes have been fixed, the unavailable repository with the
"skip_if_unavailabe=1" setting is now skipped, and "yum remove" and "yum
grouplist" now work as expected. (BZ#967121, BZ#1029359)

• When the "yum verify" command was executed, the yum utility reported changes

to file permissions even though there were not any. A patch has been provided to
fix this bug, and yum now provides only reliable reports. (BZ#1045415)

• When the yum command was executed on a non-C locale, yum terminated

unexpectedly. This update adds support to locales, and the localized yum now
runs without crashes. (BZ#1061583)

• Previously, if there was a broken symbolic link in the /etc/yum.repos.d/

directory and the "yum repolist" command was issued, the yum utility terminated
unexpectedly. With this update, the unreadable repository files are skipped, and
yum no longer crashes. (BZ#1065122)

• Prior to this update, the yum depsolver did not compare versions of virtual

provides. As a consequence, when yum installed a package, the depsolver did not
select the package with the highest version of virtual provides. The underlying
source code has been patched, and the yum depsolver now respects versions of
virtual provides as expected. (BZ#1073406)

• When the "yum check" command was issued on packages installed with missing

pre- or post-dependencies, the yum utility reported RPM database problems, With
this update, yum ignores missing pre- or post-dependencies, and "yum check" no
longer reports such problems. (BZ#1099195)

• When environment variables $YUM0-$YUM9 were used in the yum.conf file, these

variables were not substituted with their values. The underlying source code has
been patched, and the variables are now correctly substituted with their values
in yum.conf. (BZ#1102575)

Users of yum are advised to upgrade to these updated packages, which fix these
bugs.

Solution

Before applying this update, make sure all previously released errata
relevant to your system have been applied.

This update is available via the Red Hat Network. Details on how to
use the Red Hat Network to apply this update are available at
https://access.redhat.com/site/articles/11258

Affected Products

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 6 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 6 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation 6 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for IBM z Systems 6 s390x
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Power, big endian 6 ppc64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Scientific Computing 6 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server from RHUI 6 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server from RHUI 6 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - Extended Life Cycle Support 6 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - Extended Life Cycle Support 6 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation 6 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop 6 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop 6 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - Extended Life Cycle Support (for IBM z Systems) 6 s390x
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - Extended Life Cycle Support Extension 6 x86_64
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - Extended Life Cycle Support Extension 6 i386
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server - Extended Life Cycle Support Extension (for IBM z Systems) 6 s390x

Fixes

• BZ - 861204 - yum.rpmtrans.RPMTransaction failed, aborting!
• BZ - 883463 - yum traceback, 'RPMDBAdditionalData' object has no attribute 'yumdb_cache', when /var/lib/yum is not writable.
• BZ - 920758 - yum-3.2.29-40.el6 causes strange mash failures with el5 packages
• BZ - 965695 - yum install '*/sesearch' doesn't work
• BZ - 967121 - 'yum remove' exits on unreachable repo with 'skip_if_unavailabe=1' set
• BZ - 969880 - [abrt] yum-3.2.29-40.el6: codecs.py:351:write:UnicodeDecodeError: 'ascii' codec can't decode byte 0xc5 in position 33: ordinal not in range(128)
• BZ - 1005282 - yum.update_md.UpdateNotice.xml() omits the RPM epochs
• BZ - 1009499 - yum complicates config URIs needlessly, leading to strange error messages
• BZ - 1011237 - superfluous dots after "via" preposition in man pages
• BZ - 1014993 - update yum check description in yum manpage
• BZ - 1024111 - yum-config-manager --setopt doesn't work with dotted repoids
• BZ - 1029359 - yum grouplist ignores skip_if_unavailable=1
• BZ - 1073256 - Error in yum/repoMDObject.py
• BZ - 1073406 - Yum depsolver doesn't compare versions of virtual provides
• BZ - 1098442 - [RHEL6] Yum config manager confuses ID and name
• BZ - 1099195 - rpm -e xorg-x11-font-utils succeeds even though it's required by ghostscript-fonts
• BZ - 1102575 - Environment variable substitution in yum.conf doesn't work

CVEs

(none)

References

(none)