Karl Misselt wrote:
> Mark Whidby wrote:
> 
>> Maybe I'm missing something but should this file, 
>> /etc/sysconfig/rhn/sources, necessarily point to:
>>
>> ftp://ftp.scientificlinux.org/linux/scientific/4x/$ARCH/errata/SL/RPMS/
>>
>> Shouldn't it actually point to 42 or 43 or whichever release is actually
>> installed on the machine? At the moment, my 'RHN' applet is telling me
>> I've got a hundred or so updates, but these are all for 4.3 and I've 
>> only got 4.2 installed.
>>
>>
> I was actually just going to ask about this.  It's a bit confusing to 
> users when the applet
> tells them they need updates and they try to update their machine 
> (either cl or through yumex)
> and it tells them there are no updates.  Perhaps it's intended behavior 
> in that it's reminding
> people to upgrade, but it does cause confusion and limits the usefulness 
> of the RHN applet-
> people start ignoring it! -Karl

We've tried to discourage the use of the RHN applet from the beginning. 
  If you look at the 'limitations' is says that up2date, which is the 
backbone of RHN is not garanteed to work.  To be honest, we're supprised 
it still is working.

https://www.scientificlinux.org/distributions/4x/features/limitations

As part of our hiding up2date, we've done out best to try to get rid of 
the RHN applet.  We took it out of the comps.xml file (which tells the 
installer what to install) but other programs keep sucking it in as a 
dependancy.

We've also provided yumex-applet, which provides the functionality of 
rhn-applet, and actually even fulfills the rpm requirement.  We 
probrubly need to work on getting that to automatically install instead 
of rhn-applet.

But in the end, I still have the sources file pointing to 4x instead of 
the appropriate 42 or 43.
Why is that?
It was actually done on purpose, because when doing an update to the 
next release, this is an obscure file in a odd place (sl-release instead 
of something obvious like rhn-config), and I was sure I would forget 
about it.  So my reasoning was that people would not be using up2date, 
they'd be using yum or apt.  The people who use up2date would be used to 
a RHEL enviroment, where you are always pointing to the latest release 
anyway.  I had forgotten about the glowing icon.
I also figured this would be a way for those people who always want to 
be at the latest release, can do it.

Can this be changed?
Sure, if enough people want it to point to the latest release instead of 
4x, I can change it.  The problem is that it won't fix this release 
right now.

What should I do?
1) If you want to go to the latest release
   up2date yum-conf
   yum update

2) If you want to stay at the current release
   edit /etc/sysconfig/rhn/sources and change
ftp://ftp.scientificlinux.org/linux/scientific/4x/$ARCH/errata/SL/RPMS/
to
ftp://ftp.scientificlinux.org/linux/scientific/42/$ARCH/errata/SL/RPMS/

I'm sorry about the confusion.
Troy
-- 
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Troy Dawson  [log in to unmask]  (630)840-6468
Fermilab  ComputingDivision/CSS  CSI Group
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