Bug 2279854

Summary: Dehydrated dependency issue on EL8
Product: [Fedora] Fedora EPEL Reporter: Gertjan Bijl <gertjan.bijl>
Component: dehydratedAssignee: Robert Scheck <redhat-bugzilla>
Status: CLOSED ERRATA QA Contact: Fedora Extras Quality Assurance <extras-qa>
Severity: medium Docs Contact:
Priority: unspecified    
Version: epel8CC: paul.wouters, redhat-bugzilla
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Target Release: ---   
Hardware: x86_64   
OS: Linux   
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Fixed In Version: dehydrated-0.7.1-6.fc42 dehydrated-0.7.1-6.el8 Doc Type: If docs needed, set a value
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Last Closed: 2024-12-26 21:37:54 UTC Type: Bug
Regression: --- Mount Type: ---
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oVirt Team: --- RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
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Description Gertjan Bijl 2024-05-09 09:33:20 UTC
Description of problem: Latest version of dehydrated has a dependency issue on a Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.9 or Rocky 8.9 system.


Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): 0.7.1-1.el8.noarch


How reproducible: Install latest dehydrated package on fresh RHEL8 or Rocky 8 system.


Steps to Reproduce:
1. Install and register RHEL8 or install Rocky 8
2. Enable EPEL8 (install epel-release)
3. Install latest dehydrated package

Actual results:
dnf install dehydrated results in:

Error:
Problem: conflicting requests
  - nothing provides /usr/bin/mailx needed by dehydrated-0.7.1-1.el8.noarch from

Expected results:
Installs correctly when mailx is available.

Additional info:
mailx was already installed on this particular system, and present in the mentioned location, but according to the RPM itself it's installed in /bin/mailx. On EL8, the /bin directory is a symlink to /usr/bin, so eventually /usr/bin/mailx is available, but DNF doesn't know about that.
Version 0.7.0-3 works correctly.

I have the feeling this issue was introduced by https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2050852 in attempt to fix a dependency issue on EL9.

Comment 1 Robert Scheck 2024-05-09 17:58:27 UTC
Honestly, I'm in doubt that you are installing dehydrated really from EPEL 8, because:

# dnf install dehydrated
Last metadata expiration check: 0:01:36 ago on Thu May  9 17:46:41 2024.
Dependencies resolved.
================================================================================
 Package           Architecture  Version                    Repository     Size
================================================================================
Installing:
 dehydrated        noarch        0.7.1-1.el8                epel          130 k
Installing dependencies:
 openssl           x86_64        1:1.1.1k-9.el8_7           baseos        709 k
 s-nail            x86_64        14.9.23-1.el8              epel          616 k

Transaction Summary
================================================================================
Install  3 Packages

Total size: 1.4 M
Installed size: 2.5 M
Is this ok [y/N]:

Comment 2 Gertjan Bijl 2024-06-03 09:33:22 UTC
You are absolutely right, my apologies (and also my appologies for the late response, I was on vacation in between). 
All our systems are behind Red Hat Satellite / Foreman, with filters on EPEL, so the s-nail package was unavailable. However, I expected the default mailx-package to be sufficient as a dependency, but instead, way worse thing happen. Let me explain.

Situation:
- Brand new Rocky 8.10 minimal system, direct internet connection (no Satellite/Foreman), only updated and rebooted once.
- Installed epel-release.

Now I install mailx, as we have that on our production servers:
    [root@rocky8 ~]# yum install mailx
    Last metadata expiration check: 0:00:14 ago on Mon 03 Jun 2024 11:15:58 AM CEST.
    Dependencies resolved.
      ==============================================================================================================================================================================================================================================
    Package                                                Architecture                                            Version                                                         Repository                                               Size
    ==============================================================================================================================================================================================================================================
    Installing:
    mailx                                                  x86_64                                                  12.5-29.el8                                                     baseos                                                  256 k

    Transaction Summary
    ==============================================================================================================================================================================================================================================
    Install  1 Package

    Total download size: 256 k
    Installed size: 474 k
    Is this ok [y/N]: y
    [..]
    Installed:
      mailx-12.5-29.el8.x86_64                                                                                                                                                                                                                    

    Complete!

So far so good. Let me get the md5sum of the executable:
    [root@rocky8 ~]# md5sum /usr/bin/mailx
    bc25bfe29293d27c4eb0e38346fc3791  /usr/bin/mailx

Now I install dehydrated:
    [root@rocky8 ~]# yum install dehydrated
    Last metadata expiration check: 0:00:38 ago on Mon 03 Jun 2024 11:15:58 AM CEST.
    Dependencies resolved.
    ==============================================================================================================================================================================================================================================
    Package                                                    Architecture                                           Version                                                         Repository                                            Size
    ==============================================================================================================================================================================================================================================
    Installing:
    dehydrated                                                 noarch                                                 0.7.1-1.el8                                                     epel                                                 130 k
    Installing dependencies:
    s-nail                                                     x86_64                                                 14.9.23-1.el8                                                   epel                                                 616 k

    Transaction Summary
    ==============================================================================================================================================================================================================================================
    Install  2 Packages

    Total download size: 747 k
    Installed size: 1.3 M
    Is this ok [y/N]: y
    [..]
    Installed:
      dehydrated-0.7.1-1.el8.noarch                                                                                          s-nail-14.9.23-1.el8.x86_64                                                                                         

    Complete!

Seems good as well, however:
   [root@rocky8 ~]# md5sum /usr/bin/mailx
   2a7e90d21ffdd5f7e776012743621ddb  /usr/bin/mailx

The MD5sum of mailx has changed!

This seems to be caused by:
   [root@rocky8 ~]# rpm -ql mailx | grep 'bin/mailx'
   /bin/mailx
   [root@rocky8 ~]# rpm -ql s-nail | grep 'bin/mailx'
   /usr/bin/mailx
   /usr/bin/mailx.s-nail
   [root@rocky8 ~]# ls -als /bin
   0 lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root 7 Oct 11  2021 /bin -> usr/bin

DNF/RPM has no knowledge of the symlink from /bin to /usr/bin, and therefore it treats them as different files, causing s-nail to just bluntly overwrite mailx, while the mailx package is still installed.
This obviously is not an issue in the dehydrated package, but it points out why I want filters on EPEL, as not all packages play nicely with each other. I´d really like to see the mailx package from the base repository to be the dependency for dehydrated in EPEL8 again, and only use s-nail in EPEL9.

Comment 3 Fedora Update System 2024-12-26 16:36:56 UTC
FEDORA-2024-faa30982c0 (dehydrated-0.7.1-6.fc42) has been submitted as an update to Fedora 42.
https://bodhi.fedoraproject.org/updates/FEDORA-2024-faa30982c0

Comment 4 Fedora Update System 2024-12-26 16:43:25 UTC
FEDORA-EPEL-2024-c21e2fa805 (dehydrated-0.7.1-6.el8) has been submitted as an update to Fedora EPEL 8.
https://bodhi.fedoraproject.org/updates/FEDORA-EPEL-2024-c21e2fa805

Comment 5 Fedora Update System 2024-12-26 21:37:54 UTC
FEDORA-2024-faa30982c0 (dehydrated-0.7.1-6.fc42) has been pushed to the Fedora 42 stable repository.
If problem still persists, please make note of it in this bug report.

Comment 6 Fedora Update System 2024-12-27 01:41:17 UTC
FEDORA-EPEL-2024-c21e2fa805 has been pushed to the Fedora EPEL 8 testing repository.

You can provide feedback for this update here: https://bodhi.fedoraproject.org/updates/FEDORA-EPEL-2024-c21e2fa805

See also https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/QA:Updates_Testing for more information on how to test updates.

Comment 7 Fedora Update System 2025-01-04 03:09:24 UTC
FEDORA-EPEL-2024-c21e2fa805 (dehydrated-0.7.1-6.el8) has been pushed to the Fedora EPEL 8 stable repository.
If problem still persists, please make note of it in this bug report.