In Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.9, yum uninstalls original package after a failed package update.

Issue

• In Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.9, with yum-3.2.22-33.el5.noarch when updating packages, yum uninstalls original package after a failed package update.
• Scenario:
  • Packages A 1.x and B 1.x are installed.
  • A and B should both be updates to their 2.0 releases.
  • A and B depend on each other and require each other to be on the same major version.
• Observed behaviour:
  • Update A and B
  • yum starts to update A from 1.x to 2.0
  • A-2.0's %pre script fails
  • A is not updated to 2.0
  • B is updated to 2.0
  • A 1.x is uninstalled
  • B 1.x is uninstalled
  • yum has finished
  • Result : Installation is broken because A is not installed anymore and executed it's final uninstall scripts (like database deletion).
• Expected minimal behaviour:
  • yum update A B
  • yum starts to update A from 1.x to 2.0
  • A-2.0's %pre script fails
  • A is not updated to 2.0
  • B is updated to 2.0
  • A 1.x remains installed
  • B 1.x is uninstalled
  • yum has finished
  • Result : Installation is broken because B's requirements (A >= 2.0) are not met. Data is still on place.
• Expected optimal behaviour:
  • yum update A B
  • yum starts to update A from 1.x to 2.0
  • A-2.0's %pre script fails
  • A is not updated to 2.0
  • B's update is skipped because the requirement on A is not met
  • A 1.x remains installed
  • B 1.x remains installed
  • yum has finished
  • Result: installation still works, update failed.