RE: Disappearing symlinks in RPM transaction

["Wichmann, Mats D" <mats d wichmann intel com>]

Jos Vos wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I have a interesting RPM problem that I can't explain (yet).
>
> I have a package, say foo-1-1.  It contains a directory, say /opt/foo
>
> I want to make an update, say foo-1-2, in which /opt/foo is not a
> directory anymore, but a symlink, say /opt/foo -> bar.
> Just packaging it as such does not seem to work, as the RPM says then:
>
>   error: unpacking of archive failed on file /opt/foo: cpio: rename

no light: been there, same problem, no joy.

In our particular case,  a toolchain became multi-version capable,
and thus changed from providing /opt/foo/lib to providing
/opt/foo/lib-1.0, /opt/foo/lib-2.0, etc. with /opt/foo/lib
becoming a symlink to the latest version.

What I did find was if there was *anything* that depended on
the old way (and in our case there was), it messed up, so ended
up removing all the packages, installing the base, and building
up from there again.   Not exactly a transition-aware upgrade :(