CentOS - Mar 2013 - Older versions of packages disappearing from yum repos

I've been designing the infrastructure for a new team using CentOS 6 and
Puppet.  I'm still learning Puppet, but thought I had things pretty well
under control.  After this week, I'm beginning to wonder? :-)

In the last week I've had versions of three packages disappear from the yum
repositories I'm using, both EPEL and the standard ones from a base CentOS
6.3 install.  Since I'm trying to install specific versions of packages with
Puppet, this is a problem.  The most recent one that just turned up this morning
is kernel-devel.  I have the following resource defined in one of my Puppet
manifests:

   package {"kernel-devel-${::kernelrelease}":
       alias => 'kernel-devel',
   }

I'm trying to ensure that I've got the kernel-devel package installed
that matches the kernel I'm currently using. I naively assumed that once a
package was made available via the official CentOS mirrors that it would never
disappear.  That doesn't appear to be the case.  I have 
kernel-2.6.32-279.19.1.el6.x86_64 installed.
kernel-devel-2.6.32-279.19.1.el6.x86_64 is gone, apparently replaced with
kernel-devel-2.6.32-358.0.1.el6.x86_64. I have a couple of other packages that
have given me problems, too, namely ngircd which was upgraded from 18 to 20.1.

How do I manage this problem?  Do I need to maintain my own mirrors?  That seems
like a horrible solution.  Is there another CentOS repository I should be using?
Am I just going about this all wrong?

Thanks,
Brian

--
Brian Lalor
blalor at bravo5.org

On 03/10/2013 11:52 AM, Brian Lalor wrote:
> I've been designing the infrastructure for a new team using CentOS 6
and Puppet.  I'm still learning Puppet, but thought I had things pretty well
under control.  After this week, I'm beginning to wonder? :-)
>
> In the last week I've had versions of three packages disappear from the
yum repositories I'm using, both EPEL and the standard ones from a base
CentOS 6.3 install.  Since I'm trying to install specific versions of
packages with Puppet, this is a problem.  The most recent one that just turned
up this morning is kernel-devel.  I have the following resource defined in one
of my Puppet manifests:
>
>    package {"kernel-devel-${::kernelrelease}":
>        alias => 'kernel-devel',
>    }
>
> I'm trying to ensure that I've got the kernel-devel package
installed that matches the kernel I'm currently using. I naively assumed
that once a package was made available via the official CentOS mirrors that it
would never disappear.  That doesn't appear to be the case.  I have 
kernel-2.6.32-279.19.1.el6.x86_64 installed.
kernel-devel-2.6.32-279.19.1.el6.x86_64 is gone, apparently replaced with
kernel-devel-2.6.32-358.0.1.el6.x86_64. I have a couple of other packages that
have given me problems, too, namely ngircd which was upgraded from 18 to 20.1.
>
> How do I manage this problem?  Do I need to maintain my own mirrors?  That
seems like a horrible solution.  Is there another CentOS repository I should be
using?  Am I just going about this all wrong?
CentOS only releases the LATEST trees when do a point release.  (That is
moving from CentOS-6.3 to 6.4)

Our main version is 6 and that will always point to the latest point
release.  Last week that was pointing to 6.3, now it is pointing to 6.4.

If you do not want to upgrade to the lastest CentOS version, then you
have to create your own mirrors and do your own version control.

You can also get any previous version of centos from the centos vault:

http://vault.centos.org/

So, if you go to the 6.3 tree, you can get that older kernel-devel package.

NOTE:  that kernel has security issues and has been replaced.

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On Mar 11, 2013, at 8:57 AM, Johnny Hughes <johnny at centos.org> wrote:
> You can also get any previous version of centos from the centos vault:
> 
> http://vault.centos.org/
> 
> So, if you go to the 6.3 tree, you can get that older kernel-devel package.
Thanks, Johnny.  This is the solution I've gone with for now.  I'm not
opposed to upgrading, but I do need repeatability and consistency.


--
Brian Lalor
blalor at bravo5.org