Bug 602468

Summary:	RFE: don't block read-only access to package database
Product:	[Fedora] Fedora	Reporter:	Michael Monreal <michael.monreal>
Component:	yum	Assignee:	Seth Vidal <skvidal>
Status:	CLOSED NOTABUG	QA Contact:	Fedora Extras Quality Assurance <extras-qa>
Severity:	medium	Docs Contact:
Priority:	low
Version:	13	CC:	ffesti, james.antill, maxamillion, pmatilai, tim.lauridsen
Target Milestone:	---
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Hardware:	All
OS:	Linux
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Fixed In Version:		Doc Type:	Bug Fix
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Last Closed:	2010-06-10 01:40:34 UTC	Type:	---
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Verified Versions:		Category:	---
oVirt Team:	---	RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
Cloudforms Team:	---	Target Upstream Version:
Embargoed:

Description Michael Monreal 2010-06-09 22:06:22 UTC

One of the most annoying problems with yum is that it blocks all access to the package database if one yum process is working, even if the second process only needs read access. Example:

- Terminal A: yum update
- Terminal B: yum search foo

Actions like "search" and "info" should always work.

Comment 1 seth vidal 2010-06-10 01:40:34 UTC

the install/update process is running as root

if you run the search/info process as a user it is fine.

if you run it as root the reason it can't work is b/c the cache is in the same location and could be being updated. So we lock that location.

Comment 2 Michael Monreal 2010-06-10 13:44:10 UTC

Thanks for the explanation. I had "yum" aliased to "sudo yum", so everything was running under the same account. Worked around this now and it is already a nice improvement.

However, if a "yum update" is in progress for example, why can't I search the package list with packagekit? Is there a technical reason or is this a packagekit bug?

Comment 3 seth vidal 2010-06-10 13:51:05 UTC

During an update, especially if it is still depsolving, new metadata can be being downloaded. Querying the metadata when other things are writing to it is unlikely to gain results you want.