[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 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