Hi all,

I've added a i386 repo to my x86_64 nodes and I'm seeing that, when
installing the node, yum sometimes installs many i386 packages and
sometimes not.
So, I'd like to set yum to install always x86_64 and then i386 (if
needed or specified).

Reading yum.conf man I saw :

multilib_policy Can be set to ’all’ or ’best’. All means install all
possible arches for any package you want to install. Therefore yum
install foo will install foo.i386 and foo.x86_64 on x86_64, if it is
available. Best means install the best arch for this platform, only.

so seems that is the param I want. Yum tries to install x86_64 but if I
specify foo.i386 it will install foo.i386 too.

But then I noticed a strange behaviour (bug? feature?) when installing
groups of packages. If multilib_policy is set to best, i386 packages
from the group are not installed:

# grep multilib_policy /etc/yum.conf
multilib_policy=best
# yum  groupinstall glite-WN
[....]
No packages in any requested group available to install or update



# grep multilib_policy /etc/yum.conf
#multilib_policy=best
# yum  groupinstall glite-WN
[...]

Dependencies Resolved

================================================================================================================================================================================
 Package                                  Arch                              Version                                     Repository                                         Size
================================================================================================================================================================================
Installing:
 dpm                                      i386                              1.7.4-7sec.sl5                              gLite-WN-3.2-updates                              3.9 M
 dpm-devel                                i386                              1.7.4-7sec.sl5                              gLite-WN-3.2-updates                              609 k
 dpm-libs                                 i386                              
[...]


so here comes some questions:

1.-) I'm not a "yum group" expert, but a group is a list of packages to
be installed, so, why is yum bypassing i386 packages? Cause I can
install all missing packages "by hand".

is it a problem in group's creation? 

2.-) Who may I configure yum so it install x86_64 packages always, and
only i386 if needed or specified? 


Many thanks in advance,
Arnau