[Case 64933] DNS-only update fails due to entries in cpupdate.conf

[marcochiesi]

During the last night automatic update on a WHM DNSONLY instance, I was notified about 2 different problems (apparently unrelated):

1. cpupdate.conf settings converted to local.versions

The following changes were made to your /var/cpanel/rpm.versions.d/local.versions file automatically due to =never settings in /etc/cpupdate.conf or *updisable touchfiles in /etc:

dovecot: unmanaged

cpupdate.conf is no longer the place to disable updates, nor is creating *updisable touchfiles in /etc an acceptable way to disable updates.
If this was not your intention, you should remove this from local.versions.

Example: In order to re-enable updates for dovecot you would do: /usr/local/cpanel/scripts/update_local_rpm_versions -del target_settings.dovecot

Please refer to our documentation at rpm.versions for more information.

2. Cpanel update failure during updatenow

An error was detected which prevented updatenow from completing normally.
Please review the enclosed log for further details

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[20130408.212105] Detected version '11.34.1.13' from version file.
[20130408.212105] Target version set to '11.36.0.21'
[20130408.212105] Checking license
[20130408.212105] DNSONLY detected.
... [cut] ...
[20130408.212936] file /usr/share/mysql/ukrainian/errmsg.sys from install of MySQL51-server-5.1.68-2.cp1136.x86_64 conflicts with file from package mysql-libs-5.1.52-1.el6_0.1.x86_64
[20130408.212936] W Exit Code: 254
[20130408.212936] ***** FATAL: Test install failed: file /usr/share/mysql/charsets/README from install of MySQL51-server-5.1.68-2.cp1136.x86_64 conflicts with file from package mysql-libs-5.1.52-1.el6_0.1.x86_64
... [cut] ...
[20130408.212936] The Administrator will be notified to review this output when this script completes
[20130408.212936] ***** FATAL: Error testing if the RPMs will install: Died at /usr/local/cpanel/scripts/updatenow.static line 12521.
[20130408.212936] see How to Fix RPM Installation Failures in WHM for more information
[20130408.212936] The Administrator will be notified to review this output when this script completes
[20130408.212936] E Detected events which require user notification during updatenow. Will send iContact the log

The latter looks similar to the one discussed in this thread, but versions are different.

Has anyone experienced similar issues recently? I did not find useful information on the webpages linked from the notices.

 

[Tom Risager]

Same issue here. Created ticket ID 3969661

 

[marcochiesi]

Hi Tom,
thanks for your reply. Please keep us updated with the progress of your ticket.

 

[Tom Risager]

Support responded: I set "MYSQLUP=never" in your /etc/cpupdate.conf. Let me know if you continue to experience this problem.

The update failed again:

[20130409.135751] E Blocker found: Upgrade is blocked because EXIMUP is set to 'never' in your configuration. To proceed, you can touch file '/var/cpanel/exim.unmanaged' and run the upgrade one more time. Please refer to our documentation at Upgrade and Downgrade Blockers for more information.
[20130409.135752] ***** FATAL: An attempt to up/downgrade to 11.36.0.21 was blocked. Please review blockers.

I did a "touch /var/cpanel/exim.unmanaged" and restarted the update, at which point it completed successfully.

I get the impression that updating a DNSOnly Server has not been tested very carefully prior to rolling this release out as STABLE.

 

[JaredR.]

Change this in /etc/cpupdate.conf from this:

MYSQLUP=inherit

to this:

MYSQLUP=never

and run a cPanel update again:

/usr/local/cpanel/scripts/upcp --force

I have submitted a bug report on this, with internal case number 64933, and updated the subject of the thread to better reflect the problem. I do not have a timeframe for when this will be addressed as a public build, but when it is, it will be mentioned as case 64933 in our changelog:

Change Logs

 

[JaredR.]

Note that setting MYSQLUP=never will result in cPanel not updating MySQL with the RPM packages we provide. If you use your own MySQL installation, using the packages from the operating system vendor or another source, that may be what you want, but cPanel DNS-only is really supposed to try to update MySQL using the packages we provide.

If you want MySQL to be updated using our packages, edit /var/cpanel/rpm.versions.d/local.versions and remove this line:

MySQL51: unmanaged

It may read MySQL50 or MySQL55 depending on your version selection. After editing the file, run a forced cPanel update again. If there are any MySQL packages that conflict with the packages we provide, such as from the operating system vendor, they will cause the update to fail. You will need to remove them in order for the update to proceed. Removing the packages only from the database without affecting any files usually works:

# rpm --erase --nodeps --justdb [I]$package_name[/I]

Replace $package_name with the name of the package that the cPanel update reports in conflict. Once the conflicting package is removed, run a forced cPanel update again.

The way cPanel 11.36 manages update preferences is explained in detail in this documentation:

How to Customize and Override the rpm.versions System

 

[Tom Risager]

Just to clarify - at least in my case, any changes to cpupdate.conf have been made by cPanel itself, either in the original install (about a year ago) or in a subsequent upgrade. This is the first time I hear about cpupdate.conf - and I have not made any customizations such as running my own version of MySQL etc.

At this point I have the following in /var/cpanel/rpm.versions.d/local.versions :

target_settings:
MySQL51: unmanaged
dovecot: unmanaged
exim: unmanaged
munin: installed

Presumably these lines exist because:
* The update procedure changed dovecot to unmanaged as part of the initial update attempt
* Support put MYSQLUP=never" in in /etc/cpupdate.conf before the second update attempt
* I did the suggested "touch /var/cpanel/exim.unmanaged" before the last update attempt (which was successful).

Should I now delete the "MySQL51", "dovecot", and "exim" lines from /var/cpanel/rpm.versions.d/local.versions to return everything to the default state?

 

[JaredR.]

/etc/cpupdate.conf is written by Home » Server Configuration » Update Preferences. You may have never touched the file manually, but that interface saves the settings you select to /etc/cpupdate.conf.

In each ticket we have seen so far involving the MYSQLUP= setting, the root problem has actually been that there are RPM packages that conflict with the cPanel-provided MySQL packages and prevent MySQL from updating. For information about resolving this, please see my previous post.

The reason why so many services would be "unmanaged" now is that their settings would have been "never" in /etc/cpupdate.conf, but they will not have entries in that file now since its format is different in 11.36 from 11.34. cPanel DNS-only does not manage or install Dovecot, Exim or Munin so it should not make any difference whether they are listed in /var/cpanel/rpm.versions/local.versions.

 

[StuartMac]

In each ticket we have seen so far involving the MYSQLUP= setting, the root problem has actually been that there are RPM packages that conflict with the cPanel-provided MySQL packages and prevent MySQL from updating. For information about resolving this, please see my previous post..

I've just had this problem on two of my DNS-Only servers and can confirm the only packages ever installed is the cPanel provided ones.

I've never ever used 3rd party repos and thus this must be a conflict with the ones provided by cPanel or CentOS.

Additionally there is no such menu option "Home >> Server Configuration >> Update Preferences" on the DNS-Only version of cPanel from what I can see tonight.

 

[techdruid]

While I seem to have got my DNS Only system to upgrade based on the various instructions in this thread, I notice that dovecot is in an unmanaged state. I'm left wondering if this is the correct setting, or if somehow it got disabled inappropriately, either through this process, or through some arbitrary cPanel upgrade function in the past.

In /var/cpanel/rpm.versions.d/local.version
dovecot: unmanaged

 

[JPcom]

My two DNS servers fail the upgrade with

20130411.003718] All files Staged
[20130411.003718] Testing if the newly downloaded RPMS can be installed without conflict
[20130411.003718] Testing RPM transaction
[20130411.003722] error: Failed dependencies:
[20130411.003722] sendmail = 8.13.8-2.el5 is needed by (installed) sendmail-cf-8.13.8-2.el5.i386
[20130411.003722] W Exit Code: 254
[20130411.003722] ***** FATAL: Test install failed: error: Failed dependencies:
[20130411.003722] sendmail = 8.13.8-2.el5 is needed by (installed) sendmail-cf-8.13.8-2.el5.i386
[20130411.003722] The Administrator will be notified to review this output when this script completes
[20130411.003722] ***** FATAL: Error testing if the RPMs will install: Died at /usr/local/cpanel/scripts/updatenow.static line 12521.
[20130411.003722] see How to Fix RPM Installation Failures in WHM for more information
[20130411.003722] The Administrator will be notified to review this output when this script completes
[20130411.003722] E Detected events which require user notification during updatenow. Will send iContact the log


sendmail is the stock OS mailer, the versions mentioned above are installed, but the dependency naming might be the issue

Not sure why sendmail should be of interest to DNS Only install

 

[sussexhostinguk]

Im reporting this issue as well.

Stock DNS Only installation on blank CentOS.

All of sudden, started causing issues, it's the second time in 2x months the DNS system has had issues, had a problem like this last month, did a fresh install and it's occurring again.

***** FATAL: Error testing if the RPMs will install: Died at /usr/local/cpanel/scripts/updatenow.static line 12521.

 

[XenomediaBV]

Hi, I managed to successfully update two DNSonly servers last week according to the above steps. However, one server sends the following cron job warning:

Can't locate httpd.conf at /usr/local/bandmin/ipaddrmap line 37.

Can this job be removed without any issues?

 

[Tom Risager]

I asked the same and was pointed here: http://forums.cpanel.net/f5/getting-know-rpm-versions-330561.html#post1366691

 

[XenomediaBV]

Hi Tom, thanks. So it is a know issue and it has been fixed in 11.36.1 (5) and available for WHM. Now wait till this version is also available for DNSonly.

PS. How can it be that cPanel servers are updated to 11.36.1 (5) while the changelog is still at 11.36.0 (21)? I would expect that the changlog is always known and comes before the actual patch release. Now it is unclear what has been changed