Red Hat Bugzilla – Bug 64771
Updating from 7.2 to 7.3 then using up2date yields 557 "outdated" packages in RHN
Last modified: 2015-01-07 18:56:10 EST
From Bugzilla Helper: User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:0.9.9) Gecko/20020408 Description of problem: I had a fully updated (with up2date) RH 7.2 machine that I installed the 7.3 update on top of (in other words, didn't reformat, start from scratch). I then checked in with up2date to get the latest updates for 7.3. I successfully downloaded the 4 packages that I needed (new kernel, perl thing, evolution, etc.) and they installed. Then I went to check out my profile of the system at the RedHat Network site (https://rhn.redhat.com). After logging in, it told me that I didn't have any applicable Errata (duh, I just ran up2date), but that I had an "Out of Date" system. hrmmm. I clicked on the revelant system and it told me I had 557 outdated packages for my system. WHAT? So I clicked on the link to see what the outdated packages were. I compared them with what I had on my system and the funny thing is that I had the latest versions, but it just didn't know it. NOTE: The actual number of "outdated" packages will probably vary from system to system, 557 is my number. So I remembered that you can update your package profile with up2date so I did that (up2date -p) and doing that made this problem go away. Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): How reproducible: Didn't try Steps to Reproduce: 1.Have a RH 7.2 system 2."Update an existing System" using the RH 7.3 CDs. 3.Run up2date after finishing upgrading. 4.Check your system profiles at https://rhn.redhat.com 5.Actual number of packages that will show as "outdated" is different for every system (in my case it was 557). Actual Results: You supposedly have lots of outdated packages when you really don't. Expected Results: Having checked in with up2date, it should realize you have upgraded to a different version and update the package profile. Upgrading system versions (not kernel version, I mean going from RedHat 7.2 to 7.3) should be cause for up2date to refresh the package profile without user-intervention. Additional info: Up2date could easily check the /etc/redhat-release file very quickly to see if we have changed versions. This would then set off a package refresh. I can't reproduce this only because I don't want to regress my machine and then try it again (got a lot of data saved!).
I bet this will be declared NOTABUG. You realized the answer was up2date -p to update your profile. If you were running rhnsd it would have fixed this after 12 hours when it sent in a update profile.
was it up2date itself claiming you had 557 packages to upgrade? or the rhn applet? Everything up2date starts it checks to see if the system has been upgraded, and updates the version. Updating the package list at this point is probabaly a good idea. I'll make sure the client does that from now on.
Up2date did not claim I had 557 packages to upgrade, the rhn applet did (at https://rhn.redhat.com). Before I did up2date -p to fix this for myself, I ran up2date again thinking I had missed some packages or something. up2date told me there were no packages to upgrade. Thanks for your reply.
it's actually a subtle hard to trigger rhn_applet bug thats since been fixed. Since it's currently fixed, and it's a relatively harmless bug, I'm going to close this out.
An errata has been issued which should help the problem described in this bug report. This report is therefore being closed with a resolution of ERRATA. For more information on the solution and/or where to find the updated files, please follow the link below. You may reopen this bug report if the solution does not work for you. http://rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2003-177.html