Restricting package updates to a particular version

We have a repository for the Veeam backup agent which contains several package versions, including the latest (currently 5.0.0).

In their wisdom Veeam have the latest version of the agent (5.x) not working with the (slightly older) version of the Veeam server (amusingly 10.x).

I need to ensure that the agent is not upgraded past version 4.x until we have upgraded the server to the latest version (11.x). Is this possible?

I’m running Foreman 2.3.3 with Katello 3.18.1

Thanks in advance

Michael

Hi @moo

you only have to create a yum filter. To do that you need to access the content view with the veeam repo inside. (Content View → Yum Content → Filters)

After that you need to create a new Filter. (New Filter → Content Type = Package ; Inclusion Type = Exclude)

Now you have to create a new Rule. If you only have the veeam repository in your content view you can create the rule as the screenshot below. If you don’t than u might have to create multiple rules for every package. In the “RPM Name” section you can use Wildcards. And in the Version section you create the filter for your specific version. In your case you want to exclude every package in the veeam repo with the version greater than 5.0. Save your rule and after that you see all the affected packages by clicking on “show matching content”. After that you need to publish a new content view version and unwanted packages should be hidden from your servers.

Greg

3 Likes

Thanks. I will try this later today on a test system.

Cheers

Michael

I’m having difficulty getting our test server to recognise that there is a filter in place. I suspect that I haven’t set things up correctly after creating the filter in the content view.

I’m also trying to install the Veeam agent via yum on the target box. Will that affect how it filters?

Cheers

Michael

Hi Michael.

Have you published a new Content View Version? The filter will only be active for newly created Content View versions. If you did, you should see in the Versions tab of the Content View that the package count might be smaller than your previous version.
If your test server is subscribed to your filtered content view, you are only able to install the packages provided by the content view. Meaning that all the Veeam 5.0 Packages are hidden from your server.
Using yum/dnf doens’t affect the filter in any way. You can only change the filter with foreman/katello.

Greg

Thanks. I now have it working, though I’m not sure why it wasn’t yesterday as all I did this morning was add some extra repos to the content view and republish it.

In the end we won’t need this filter as our Windoze people are in the process of upgrading the Veeam server to a release that works with version 5.0 of the agent. But I’ve learnt something so all good!

Cheers

Michael