Bug 126394 - RFE: Package holds.
Summary: RFE: Package holds.
Keywords:
Status: CLOSED WONTFIX
Alias: None
Product: Fedora
Classification: Fedora
Component: rpm
Version: rawhide
Hardware: All
OS: Linux
medium
medium
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Jeff Johnson
QA Contact: Mike McLean
URL:
Whiteboard:
Depends On:
Blocks:
TreeView+ depends on / blocked
 
Reported: 2004-06-21 07:16 UTC by Josh Rollyson
Modified: 2007-11-30 22:10 UTC (History)
0 users

Fixed In Version:
Clone Of:
Environment:
Last Closed: 2004-06-21 13:28:33 UTC
Type: ---
Embargoed:


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Description Josh Rollyson 2004-06-21 07:16:20 UTC
One of the most useful features I've seen from dpkg is "package holds".

By setting a package hold, all package manager operations that change
the state of a package will fail without an override option on the
command line. This prevents inadvertant changes to a package that for
some reason or another should not be changed on a system, as decided
by the system's administrator.

I've used this functionality in the past on *.deb based distributions
to insure that packages that I've customized do not get replaced
during upgrades - while apt-rpm has its own hold mechinism, this
doesn't do anything to address other upgrade mechinisms, or other
administrators manually installing/updating a package.

I've also used this functionality on .deb based distributions to
insure that a package that breaks the system in some way or causes
some security problem doesn't get installed. 

I would suggest that a configuration file is the best way to go about
implementing package holds, since such a list is not likely to change
frequently on a production system.

Comment 1 Jeff Johnson 2004-06-21 13:28:33 UTC
Sure, policy concepts like
    Never change this file.
and
    Never change this package.
provide a degree of comfort to to system administrators.

Both policies are implemented in up2date, which is largely
concerned with upgrades.

Neither policy is implemented in rpmlib, mainly because
"hold" eill stop anaconda from upgrading an end-user system,
thereby creating a support problem.



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