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I have upgraded EPEL repo in order to install Remi repository in order to upgrade PHP to 3.5.4 in order to upgrade civicrm (on a CentOS 6.7 VPS running one production site and its dev site).

repolist:

repo id          repo name                                         status
base             CentOS-6 - Base                                    6,575
epel             Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux 6 - x86_64     12,126
extras           CentOS-6 - extras                                  52
updates          CentOS-6 - Updates                                 1,472
repolist: 20,225

but rpm -Uvh remi-release-6.rpm gives

warning: remi-release-6.rpm: Header V3 DSA/SHA1 Signature, key ID 00f97f56: NOKEY
error: Failed dependencies:
        epel-release >= 6 is needed by remi-release-6.6-2.el6.remi.noarch

Other than the fact that I have to find and install a GPG key for Remi, why is version 6 failing a dependency which says GE 6?

Richard Grevers
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1 Answers1

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It is likely that you have installed the EPEL repositories by simply hand-editing an appropriate file in /etc/yum.repos.d. That is perfectly OK in terms of getting the EPEL packages onto your system, but for more sophisticated usage it falls down a bit.

The REMI software knows that it needs EPEL packages, so the installation is made dependent on those being configured in. The recommended way to enable the EPEL packages on your system is to install the epel-release RPM. This contains the relevant GPG key, the yum repo file, and not much else - but its presence is a quick way for packages to know that EPEL packages will be available if needed.

If you do install the epel-release RPM, then not only will your system be able to access EPEL packages, as it already can, but other software packages will know that they can rely on EPEL's availability, which they currently cannot.

MadHatter
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  • This time I got an error from yum: `Transaction Test Succeeded Running Transaction Installing : epel-release-6-8.noarch 1/1 Error unpacking rpm package epel-release-6-8.noarch error: unpacking of archive failed on file /etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-EPEL-6;56f90482: cpio: open Verifying : epel-release-6-8.noarch 1/1 Failed: epel-release.noarch 0:6-8` - not sure if that happened previously but I missed seeing the "failed" because of the complete following. Is this saying that the preexisting key is in the way? – Richard Grevers Mar 28 '16 at 10:34
  • Do you already have a file `/etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-EPEL-6`, and if so, how did it get there? – MadHatter Mar 28 '16 at 10:37
  • Yes - I downloaded it from Fedoraproject and installed it as an earlier rpm command failed because there was no key. – Richard Grevers Mar 28 '16 at 10:38
  • Try removing it before installing the `epel-release` RPM. – MadHatter Mar 28 '16 at 10:43
  • I have removed it, verified it gone and still get the same error. I also loosened permissions on that directory, as I had been unable to save a file there directly from nano (as root - "invalid argument") - ended up saving it elsewhere and using mv – Richard Grevers Mar 28 '16 at 10:48
  • I really don't understand this. You're doing all this as root, right? Is it possible that your system has some kind of crazily-restrictive `selinux` permissions set? At any rate, I think this is turning into a completely new question, to wit: why can't I install the `epel-release` RPM? I've told you why RPM doesn't think the EPEL packages are available, which is what you originally asked. You might want to consider putting this question to bed, by accepting my answer (click the tick), and writing a new question about your installation problems (possibly pointing to this one for context). – MadHatter Mar 28 '16 at 10:55
  • *has 3 minute crash course on selinux* - sestatus reports that selinux is disabled. – Richard Grevers Mar 28 '16 at 11:02
  • I shall put myself to bed and restate the question in the morning - thanks :-) – Richard Grevers Mar 28 '16 at 11:05