CentOS - Jan 2017 - microcode_ctl-2.1-16 hard crash on Intel E5 2667 v4 CPUs

Hello all!

I'm brand new to the mailing list, and I've encountered an issue with
the
microcode_ctl package version 2.1-16 being installed during the CentOS 7.3
upgrade.  It causes my servers to hard stop and they need to be forcibly
powered off and back on again with the power button to continue.

This RedHat thread https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1398698 details
the issue, and version 2.1-18 available from Petr Oros' personal section of
RedHat http://people.redhat.com/poros/e6a8cc19d733b1526c2519fbaa1e231d/ is
supposed to fix the issue.  I haven't had a chance to test it yet.

My questions are, who decides what packages are current for CentOS when I
"yum upgrade"?
When can version 2.1-18 be released to avoid this problem?

Thanks in advance!

On Wed, 4 Jan 2017, Locane wrote:
> My questions are, who decides what packages are current for CentOS 
> when I "yum upgrade"?
That's determined by the repositories defined and enabled in 
/etc/yum.conf and /etc/yum.repos.d/*.repo. To see the repositories 
enabled by your system, ask yum:

yum repolist

Each repository maintains a different set of packages. For any given 
package, order is determined by

epoch > version > release

To see those values for the packages installed on your system:

rpm -qa --qf '%{name}\t\t%{epoch}\t%{version}\t%{release}\n' | sort


Epoch is essentially a hack that can override a change in a package's 
version numbering. Most packages don't have an epoch number, but check 
out the epochs on bind-libs and (32!) and dhclient (12).


So for each package name, the package with the highest 
epoch:version:release is "current." That allows a package in the 
updates repository to be installed over one currently installed on 
your system.

-- 
Paul Heinlein <> heinlein at madboa.com <> http://www.madboa.com/

Thanks for the breakdown Paul - I've had to learn all my sysadmin stuff
through organic interactions like this.

Still though - someone manages the default repositories - so my question
is, who decides when a package gets an update from whatever CentOS ships
with default to a newer version?  How does that process take place, and,
can I affect it by adding microcode_ctl-2.1-18 ?

On Wed, Jan 4, 2017 at 10:00 AM, Paul Heinlein <heinlein at madboa.com>
wrote:
> On Wed, 4 Jan 2017, Locane wrote:
>
> My questions are, who decides what packages are current for CentOS when I
>> "yum upgrade"?
>>
>
> That's determined by the repositories defined and enabled in
/etc/yum.conf
> and /etc/yum.repos.d/*.repo. To see the repositories enabled by your
> system, ask yum:
>
> yum repolist
>
> Each repository maintains a different set of packages. For any given
> package, order is determined by
>
> epoch > version > release
>
> To see those values for the packages installed on your system:
>
> rpm -qa --qf '%{name}\t\t%{epoch}\t%{version}\t%{release}\n' | sort
>
>
> Epoch is essentially a hack that can override a change in a package's
> version numbering. Most packages don't have an epoch number, but check
out
> the epochs on bind-libs and (32!) and dhclient (12).
>
>
> So for each package name, the package with the highest
> epoch:version:release is "current." That allows a package in the
updates
> repository to be installed over one currently installed on your system.
>
> --
> Paul Heinlein <> heinlein at madboa.com <>
http://www.madboa.com/
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> CentOS at centos.org
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>