Arnau Bria wrote:
> 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".

Like the man page says, when multilib_policy is set to "best" it will 
only install x86_64 when both versions are available but neither is 
installed.  Since you already seem to have dpm.x86_64 installed, yum has 
nothing to do in your first test since you told it to only install the 
best arch available.  When you made multilib_policy default back to 
"all" it noticed that the i386 version was not installed and offered to 
install it for you.

> is it a problem in group's creation? 

No.

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

Set multilib_policy to "best" and yum will install ix86 packages only 
when x86_64 versions are unavailable.  You cannot specify which package 
architecture to install in a yum group, so you must instead install the 
ix86 versions yourself when both are available to yum while 
multilib_policy is set that way.

--
Garrett Holmstrom
University of Minnesota School of Physics and Astronomy
Systems Staff