Curious problem with yum

[Timothy Murphy]

Brian Mury wrote:

>> I recently ran "yum update" and encountered a conflict
>> with iptstate requiring libnetfilter.conntrack .
>> 
>> OK, that is simple enough;
>> but if I remove iptstate
>> I can then re-install it without any problem.
> 
> ipstate requires libnetfilter_conntrack
> libnetfilter_conntrack does not require ipstate
> 
> Removing libnetfilter-conntrack, or upgrading it to a version that does
> not satisfy the ipstate dependency, will create a conflict, which is
> what you are seeing.
> 
> Removing ipstate does not create a conflict because you have nothing
> else installed that requires it. Installing ipstate after you removed it
> is simply reinstalling the same version ("yum upgrade" was *not* trying
> to upgrade ipstate). If there was no conflict before, there isn't one
> now.

Firstly, thanks for your response.
I know, as you say, that the problem will probably sort itself out shortly.
I was really more interested in the logic behind the problem.

But I confess that I am still baffled by this logic.
Let me recall what I did:
---------------------------------------
[tim at rose ~]$ sudo yum remove iptstate
...
[tim at rose ~]$ sudo yum install iptstate
...
---------------------------------------
No dependency problem.
But now
---------------------------------------
[tim at rose ~]$ sudo yum update
--> Running transaction check
--> Processing Dependency: libnetfilter_conntrack.so.1 for package: 
iptstate-2.2.1-5.fc11.i586
...
Error: Missing Dependency: libnetfilter_conntrack.so.1 is needed by package 
iptstate-2.2.1-5.fc11.i586 (installed)
---------------------------------------

But now it seems to say that iptstate requires libnetfilter_conntrack.
So why didn't it say that before when I yum-installed iptstate?

Surely when you yum-install a package yum checks that you have
all the required dependencies?

It's only a tiny point;
yum is a great tool, in my view, and one of the best things about fedora.
But it is a bit confusing when a program seems to contradict itself.




-- 
Timothy Murphy  
e-mail: gayleard /at/ eircom.net
tel: +353-86-2336090, +353-1-2842366
s-mail: School of Mathematics, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland