On 10/31/2014 05:22 PM, Vladimir Mosgalin wrote:
> Hello everybody.
>
> I checked yum-cron documentation, config files and source but still fail
> to understand the purpose of executing yum-cron every hour in default
> configuration in SL 7.0.
>
> It doesn't install updates or mails you about pending ones, it doesn't
> seem to to anything remotely useful at all (unlike yum-cron daily which
> installs updates - of type configured in config file - and sends you
> email if it did install anything).
>
> On the other hand, yum-cron-hourly is a major annoyance factor. Like
> half dozen of times when I wanted to install something on various SL7
> systems I got message that yum is waiting for yum-cron to finish and
> release lock. yum-cron gets stuck on slow mirrors very often and
> regularly manages to do it at the same exact moment when I want to
> install some package. And unlike regular yum, you can't exactly press
> Ctrl-C for it to switch to another mirror, it just gets stuck for tens
> of minutes and prevents you from using yum yourself, unless you're to
> kill it on the spot.
>
> And since it defies normal metadata expiring logic by making it expire
> every hour on its run, it *does* load extra metadata over and over and
> has high chance of getting stuck because it does so every hour.
>
> I can switch it off, but it still bothers me that I don't understand
> its purpose. It's not like daily yum-cron needs it. And if I wanted to
> do "yum makecache" every hour I'd do so myself from cron. In fact, it
> would be more useful since it loads all the extra metadata like for
> "groupinfo/groupinstall", display changelog plugin and such.
>
I've opened upstream bugs: 1159907 and 1159917

The existing configuration is less than ideal.  However, the way it is 
packaged needs to change for a really clean solution.

Pat



-- 
Pat Riehecky

Scientific Linux developer
http://www.scientificlinux.org/