How should I provide a replacement for a package in yum?

Question

I'm writing a spec file to replace a yum package with one from our own repository. The new package will be a drop-in replacement for the original.

I thought the best way to do it would be to give the spec file an identical Conflicts and Provides like one might do with a typical Arch Linux package:

Name:       vncsnapshot-png

Provides:   vncsnapshot
Conflicts:  vncsnapshot

This seemed to work, and the package can be installed/downgraded/upgraded with no issue. However, reinstallations fail:

Loaded plugins: security
Setting up Reinstall Process
Resolving Dependencies
--> Running transaction check
---> Package vncsnapshot-png.x86_64 0:1.3-1.el6 will be reinstalled
--> Finished Dependency Resolution

Dependencies Resolved

===============================================================================================================================================================
 Package                                    Arch                              Version                                 Repository                          Size
===============================================================================================================================================================
Reinstalling:
 vncsnapshot-png                            x86_64                            1.3-1.el6                               sv.repo                             35 k

Transaction Summary
===============================================================================================================================================================
Reinstall     1 Package(s)

Total download size: 35 k
Installed size: 72 k
Is this ok [y/N]: y
Downloading Packages:
vncsnapshot-png-1.3-1.el6.x86_64.rpm                                                                                                    |  35 kB     00:00     
Running rpm_check_debug
ERROR with rpm_check_debug vs depsolve:
vncsnapshot conflicts with vncsnapshot-png-1.3-1.el6.x86_64
vncsnapshot conflicts with vncsnapshot-png-1.3-1.el6.x86_64
** Found 1 pre-existing rpmdb problem(s), 'yum check' output follows:
vncsnapshot-png-1.3-1.el6.x86_64 has installed conflicts vncsnapshot: vncsnapshot-png-1.3-1.el6.x86_64
Your transaction was saved, rerun it with:
 yum load-transaction /tmp/yum_save_tx-2016-02-18-12-18dAjmpb.yumtx

Is there a way to mark the package as conflicting with the original (i.e. can't be installed at the same time) while providing the original (i.e. a drop-in replacement), without running into this problem?

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Feb 24 '16 at 00:22

In RPM language, conflicts also works against virtual provides, so your package is conflicting with itself. To fix this, you need to qualify your Provides and Conflicts with the version macro.

Provides:   vncsnapshot = %{version}
Conflicts:  vncsnapshot < %{version}

I do this regularly for the IUS project. You can see more examples by looking through some of our spec files.

How should I provide a replacement for a package in yum?

1 Answers1