Hi! While trying to use --installroot to set up some cluster nodes, I came across the problem of specifying the architecture of the machine that will run the software from installroot. For example, if the machine on which I run yum is "i686" and the machine that would run from the installroot is "athlon", then "athlon" would get the kernel/glibc/etc. for i686 because the target architecture cannot be specified. Same problem if I want to create the root for x86_64 on a x86 machine or vice-versa; building for x86 on x86_64 can be started with 'setarch i[36]86 yum ...', but again there is no control over variations like athlon. I tried searching this list's archives and the Internet at large and could not find even one reference of a similar problem... which seems strange to me given that yum is for example used by http://www.warewulf-cluster.org in a very similar setup. Is my cluster the only one that grew over time to a mix of 3-4 architectures ? So, apart for asking Seth for something like --installrootarch, I would like to know if I missed some place where this is already discussed and if not to discuss workarounds. I have already thought of: 1. create a separate repo with only the architecture specific bits in it, so that yum doesn't have a choice. Apart from being ugly, I'm not even sure that yum will accept this... 2. do a normal yum installation, then play with 'rpm -e --nodeps' then 'rpm -i' for kernel/glibc/etc. This would work, but the arch would probably be reverted by yum at the first 'update'. 3. do a normal yum installation, then force the architecture of the packages on the yum command line (which is similar to 2., but is using yum rather than rpm). This yields the following strange behaviour (lines edited to show only interesting bits): > yum ... list kernel ... Looking in Available Packages: Name Arch Version Repo ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- kernel i586 2.4.21-15.0.4.TL updates kernel athlon 2.4.21-15.0.4.TL updates ... > yum ... install kernel.athlon ... Dependencies resolved I will do the following: Is this ok [y/N]: y Downloading Packages Running test transaction: Test transaction complete, Success! Transaction(s) Complete Please notice the "I will do the following:" line immediately followed by "Is this ok [y/N]:". Trying to install kernel.i586 behaves normally. Testing shows that this is not dependent on "exactarch" setting. So at the moment I don't have any (long-term) usable solution. Is there one ? Hopeful, Bogdan Costescu IWR - Interdisziplinaeres Zentrum fuer Wissenschaftliches Rechnen Universitaet Heidelberg, INF 368, D-69120 Heidelberg, GERMANY Telephone: +49 6221 54 8869, Telefax: +49 6221 54 8868 E-mail: Bogdan.Costescu@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
