yum install local rpm throws error if up to date

Question

When installing rpm packages from local file directory it runs fine the first time

sudo yum install packages/* -y --disablerepo=*

When the same thing is run the second time as part of automated scripts, it throws an error (exit code 1)

packages/package.rpm: does not update installed package.
Error: Nothing to do

I can run yum update (exit code 0)

sudo yum update packages/* -y --disablerepo=*
...
No packages marked for update

The problem with this is that update will skip the packages that are not installed.

I don't want to ignore exit code if there are any real problems here, and just want to do install-or-update. Is there a rpm -i equivalent that would achieve that? Please take note that this is done on a group of rpm packages that might at any point include additional ones.

I guess one option would be to iterate over them in a shell script and check if they are installed or not, but then again dependency resolution might become rather painful and it does sound like re-inventing a bike.

UPDATE:

rpm --install will throw exit code depending on the number of failed packages. https://www.redhat.com/archives/rpm-list/2005-July/msg00071.html

rpm --freshen will ignore any rpms that are not installed previously while giving no output at all.

Solution

on my system (centos6, centos7) "yum localinstall" will return code 0 even with "Error: Nothing to do" message, while "yum install" returns 1.

sudo yum localinstall packages/* -y --disablerepo=*

Anyway you can also check the message result to ignore this as a "normal error" in your automation scripts, like for example using bash:

sudo yum install packages/* -y --disablerepo=* 2>&1 | tee /tmp/yum.output
grep -q "Error: Nothing to do" /tmp/yum.output
if [ $? -eq 0 ]; then
  ... code for no error
else 
  ... code for error
fi

Comments

[c4f4t0r]

yum localinstall for installing local package

[JackLeo]

@c4f4t0r localinstall is a legacy option. yum install behaves the same given the rpm local file. Same exit code, same error. linux.die.net/man/8/yum

[Alexander Tolkachev]

Why not to use rpm -F packages/* for update?

[JackLeo]

@AlexanderTolkachev same issue as yum update. It updates/freshens the packages that are already installed. If the list of packages includes a new one, it will be skipped.

[Alexander Tolkachev]

@JackLeo could you show output for rpm -F <a new one>.rpm?

[JackLeo]

@AlexanderTolkachev I could generate it a tad later, yes, I've only checked that with the manual. linux.die.net/man/8/rpm At the moment I am looking into install via rpm directly, and that trows more explicit exit codes. In a case of no updates it trows 3. So I am looking into it at the moment.

[JackLeo]

@AlexanderTolkachev added. No output at all. Just ignores the package both if given a list *.rpm or explicitly the name of the package.

[tonioc]

Indeed, it looks like a bug that should be submitted to redhat...