[rhelv6-list] question about firefox 32- vs. 64-bit RPMs in rhel-6-server-rpms and rhel-6-server-optional-rpms repos

[Horst Severini]

Hi again,

I never received any response to this email. Are my emails going through 
to the list at all? I never even got my own email back.

Thanks,

	Horst

On 10/31/18 7:47 PM, Horst Severini wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> we noticed that on our 64-bit RHEL6 Server nodes, whenever there's
> a firefox update, the 64-bit firefox RPM is being replaced with an
> updated 32-bit RPM. I dug a little deeper, and I think the issue
> might be that while there are both 32- and 64-bit versions
> in the rhel-6-server-rpms repo, only the 32-bit version is
> in the rhel-6-server-optional-rpms.
> 
> At least that's what I gather from the output of 'yum list firefox':
> 
> Installed Packages
> firefox.x86_64             60.3.0-1.el6              @rhel-6-server-rpms
> Available Packages
> firefox.i686               60.3.0-1.el6              rhel-6-server-optional-rpms
> 
> Actually, it's even weirder than that. If I uninstall firefox,
> then I get this:
> 
> yum --disablerepo=rhel-6-server-optional-rpms list firefox
> 
> Available Packages
> firefox.i686                   31.1.0-5.el6_5                 rhel-6-server-rpms
> firefox.x86_64                 60.3.0-1.el6                   rhel-6-server-rpms
> 
> yum --disablerepo=rhel-6-server-rpms list firefox
> 
> Available Packages
> firefox.i686              60.3.0-1.el6               rhel-6-server-optional-rpms
> 
> Is there a reason for that? I would've expected that either both of them
> should be provided by and updated in the same repo, or there should only
> be a 64-bit version at all, like there is for thunderbird:
> 
> yum list thunderbird
> 
> Available Packages
> thunderbird.x86_64           52.9.1-1.el6            rhel-6-server-optional-rpms
> 
> Is there a way to fix this in the repos? If not, what would be the easiest
> way to fix it on the client side? I suppose I could add some 'exclude=firefox'
> statement to the [rhel-6-server-optional-rpms] section in
> /etc/yum.repos.d/redhat.repo, but I was hoping I didn't have to resort
> to a hack like that.
> 
> Or are there other yum priority tweaks that could address this?
> 
> The weird thing is that during a fresh install, it picks the 64-bit version,
> so I'm not sure why an updated 'favors' the 32-bit version. Maybe
> rhel-6-server-optional-rpms is updated before rhel-6-server-rpms,
> and therefore the 'yum update' can only find the updated 32-bit version,
> and therefore chooses that one?
> 
> Thanks a lot,
> 
> 	Horst
>