Yum is deeply flawed lately. Removes needed kernel modules by mistake

[Paul Johnson]

I came to work today and glanced at the yum logs.  When it installs a
new kernel, but it cannot find the module RPMs for it, then it goes
ahead and installs the new kernel, and removes the module RPMs for the
older version of the kernel.  I think this is really bad yum behavior.
 It is the second machine on which I've seen it do this.

Mar 17 05:15:59 Updated: numactl.x86_64 0.9.8-5.fc8
Mar 17 05:16:00 Updated: shared-mime-info.x86_64 0.23-1.fc8
Mar 17 05:16:01 Updated: kexec-tools.x86_64 1.102pre-7.fc8
Mar 17 05:16:02 Updated: gdb.x86_64 6.6-45.fc8
Mar 17 05:16:05 Updated: selinux-policy.noarch 3.0.8-93.fc8
Mar 17 05:16:18 Updated: selinux-policy-targeted.noarch 3.0.8-93.fc8
Mar 17 05:16:37 Installed: kernel.x86_64 2.6.24.3-34.fc8
Mar 17 05:16:44 Installed: kernel-devel.x86_64 2.6.24.3-34.fc8
Mar 17 05:16:46 Updated: kernel-headers.x86_64 2.6.24.3-34.fc8
Mar 17 05:16:53 Installed: kernel-debug-devel.x86_64 2.6.24.3-34.fc8
Mar 17 05:16:53 Erased: kmod-nvidia-2.6.23.15-137.fc8
Mar 17 05:16:57 Erased: xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-libs
Mar 17 05:17:13 Erased: kmod-nvidia
Mar 17 05:17:14 Erased: kmod-nvidia-2.6.24.3-12.fc8
Mar 17 05:17:24 Erased: xorg-x11-drv-nvidia


The kernel, that is STILL RUNNING, is

# uname -r
2.6.23.15-137.fc8

And yum has not removed that kernel (whew!)

# rpm -q kernel
kernel-2.6.23.15-137.fc8
kernel-2.6.24.3-34.fc8

But you will see in the above output that the kmod-nvidia was for
2.6.23.15-137.fc8 was removed.

It must be that livna's kmod RPMS were not available when the yum
process updated the kernel. Now they are, I can install manually:

# yum install kmod-nvidia
Loading "fastestmirror" plugin
Loading mirror speeds from cached hostfile
 * kde: kdeforge.unl.edu
 * livna: mirrors.tummy.com
 * fedora: mirror.nuvio.com
 * kde-all: kdeforge.unl.edu
 * adobe-linux-i386: linuxdownload.adobe.com
 * updates: mirror.nuvio.com
Setting up Install Process
Parsing package install arguments
Resolving Dependencies
--> Running transaction check
---> Package kmod-nvidia.x86_64 0:169.12-3.lvn8 set to be updated
--> Processing Dependency: kmod-nvidia-2.6.24.3-34.fc8 = 169.12-3.lvn8
for package: kmod-nvidia
--> Running transaction check
---> Package kmod-nvidia-2.6.24.3-34.fc8.x86_64 0:169.12-3.lvn8 set to
be updated
--> Processing Dependency: nvidia-kmod-common >= 169.12 for package:
kmod-nvidia-2.6.24.3-34.fc8
--> Running transaction check
---> Package xorg-x11-drv-nvidia.x86_64 0:169.12-1.lvn8 set to be updated
filelists.xml.gz          100% |=========================| 477 kB    00:00


But I certainly don't want yum removing the older ones.


I can't believe I'm the only one seeing this, but nobody else is
yelling about it, so I must be the only one.  That makes me think I've
got something configured incorrectly.  I can report in bugzilla, but
won't do that until I'm sure it is not some bonehead mistake I've
made.  At least I'm consistent. It is happening on all the PCs I
administer...

-- 
Paul E. Johnson
Professor, Political Science
1541 Lilac Lane, Room 504
University of Kansas