Package ordering

Rpm orders transactions solely based on package dependency information: dependencies are installed before the dependent, and erased after it. If the install/erase order is not right, then either the dependency information is incomplete, incorrect or there are unresolvable dependency loops.

The order is calculated by matching dependencies on Provides from the packages in the transaction. If package A Requires B, then a provider of B will be installed before A, and erased after it. In case of multiple providers, heuristics are used to pick the best match. Weak dependencies (Recommends, Suggests, Supplements, Enhances) and ordering hints (OrderWithRequires) are similarly considered, if the provider is present in the transaction. Note that Supplements and Enhances are reverse dependencies and are ordered thus.Obsoletes and Conflicts dependencies are not used for ordering.

A dependency loop is generally a packaging bug as no correct ordering is possible to achieve in that situation. They are best solved at the source, by splitting packages to sub-packages to eliminate the loop. Sometimes this is not practical though, and also some dependencies are not relevant for ordering at all. Rpm supports various dependency qualifiers to supply context that rpm uses for loop resolution.

Qualifiers work in two ways, depending on the context and the qualifier: they can either resolve the loop, or favor loop cutting.

Normally, Requires: A and Requires(pre): A result in exactly the same install order but when a loop is detected, the latter is favored during installation. During erasure, the latter is ignored. In simple cases this is sufficient to nudge the loop resolution in the desired direction, but there is no guarantee. Also note that favoring is only used on hard Requires dependencies.

Requires(preun): A declares the dependency is only needed during erasure, so it can resolve an install-time loop. Unordering qualifiers cause the dependency to be ignored entirely during ordering, so they resolve loops.

Install-order qualifiers:

• pre
• post

Erase-order qualifiers:

• preun
• postun

Unordering qualifiers:

• pretrans
• posttrans
• meta
• verify

Packages belonging to a dependency loop are installed as a consecutive group, using the qualifier hints to try and cut the loop with least minimal disruption, but one should remember that there is no such thing as a correct order for a loop.

Ordering issues and dependency loops can be difficult to analyze. To aid with this, rpm can print out transaction ordering diagnostics. These diagnostics can be enabled with the --deploops switch from the cli or the RPMTRANS_FLAG_DEPLOOPS transaction flag from the API. Installing to (and erasing from) an empty chroot is an effective way of discovering missing dependencies.