1.204. yum-utils

Updated yum-utils packages that fix several bugs and add various enhancements are now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.

The yum-utils package contains a collection of utilities written by various authors for the Yum package manager, as well as usage examples. The utilities provided by yum-utils make Yum more powerful and easier to use.

These updated yum-utils packages provide fixes for the following bugs:

* Prior to this update, if "yum update" failed and the user ran the "yum-complete-transaction" program, the program offered to delete system critical packages. With this update, the program obtains the list of failed yum transactions and finishes the transactions without removing any packages critical for the system's operation. (BZ#495911)

* In accordance with current guidelines, all Python executables have been updated to use the "#!/usr/bin/python" bang line instead of "#!/usr/bin/env python". (BZ#521905)

* Prior to this update, the repodiff utility could have experienced performance issues. This was caused by an inefficient algorithm used for comparing packages. This update improves the repodiff algorithm by making it more efficient. (BZ#646571)

* Prior to this update, the repodiff utility could not handle packages with descriptions that contained non-ASCII characters, and could have failed to set up repositories with such summaries. With this update, the utility handles the characters correctly and works as expected on repositories with packages containing non-ASCII characters. (BZ#647521)

* Prior to this update, the yum-groups-manager utility could have returned a python traceback when loading group metadata from a gzipped file. This occurred because it used an incorrect argument when opening the gzipped file. With this update, the underlying code has been changed and the gzipped file is opened correctly. (BZ#648623)

* Prior to this update, the repoquery utility could not handle packages with descriptions that contained non-ASCII characters. With this update, the utility handles the characters correctly and works as expected on repositories containing packages which use non-ASCII characters. (BZ#702282)

In addition, these updated packages provide the following enhancements:

* This update adds the yum-plugin-priorities package, which provides the yum priority feature. This allows the user to set a precedence of one repository over another. (BZ#518129)

* With this update, the repodiff utility can override the global excludes set in the yum.conf configuration file. (BZ#643137)

Users are advised to upgrade to these updated yum-utils packages, which resolve these issues and add these enhancements.