[Novalug] RPM newer or not newer? Custom RPMs / spec files and version math

Nick Danger nick@hackermonkey.com
Fri Dec 5 23:19:05 EST 2008


I have an RPM issue going on. RHEL (and so CentOS too) comes with Bind
version 9.2.4 with some patches. I need ordered reply of certain hosts
and that only worked with bind 9.4 and up, so I had to custom compile
(using another spec file) an RPM for bind 9.4.x. First .1, then .2 and
.2p1. And now 9.4.3 came out. Unfortunately due to a crash recently of
my desktop, I lost my old spec files and copies of the rpms I had done
perviously so I took the src file for the official 9.2.4 that comes with
CentOS and hacked it up to now work with bind sources for 9.4.3. And
good times, it worked. I installed it on my test beds and perfect, no
problem.

Until I went to go put it on the production server. My test beds were
old stock CentOS boxes and so had 9.2.4 whatever installed. And they
took an "rpm -Fvh bind<etc>" just fine. But my production server has my
rpm for 9.4.2p1 on there. And it gives me this:

Preparing...                ###########################################
[100%]
	package bind-libs-9.4.2p1-1 (which is newer than bind-libs-9.4.3-1dsl)
is already installed
	package bind-utils-9.4.2p1-1 (which is newer than
bind-utils-9.4.3-1dsl) is already installed
	package bind-9.4.2p1-1 (which is newer than bind-9.4.3-1dsl) is already
installed
	package bind-chroot-9.4.2p1-1 (which is newer than
bind-chroot-9.4.3-1dsl) is already installed


Waaazzzuh? How is 9.4.2p1 > 9.4.3? I think when I renamed the packages
at the top I did something wrong. Anyone know exactly how the math works
when declaring versions in spec files? I put off the upgrade for now.

Nick



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