{"id":69,"date":"2009-05-04T19:12:53","date_gmt":"2009-05-04T23:12:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bitc.bme.emory.edu\/~lzhou\/blogs\/?p=69"},"modified":"2011-01-06T13:36:09","modified_gmt":"2011-01-06T17:36:09","slug":"rhel5-yum-update-works-but-pup-and-yum-list-security-does-not","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/csic.som.emory.edu\/~lzhou\/blogs\/?p=69","title":{"rendered":"RHEL5 – yum update works but pup and yum list-security does not"},"content":{"rendered":"

The RHEL5 machines under my administration experienced an interesting error.\u00a0 If running pup, whenever there are updates exist, it crashes with the error:<\/p>\n

SyntaxError: not well-formed (invalid token)<\/pre>\n
The error message will be things like<\/p>\n
# yum list-security\r\nLoading \"rhnplugin\" plugin\r\nLoading \"security\" plugin\r\nSetting up repositories\r\nrhel-i386-server-cluster- 100% |=========================| 1.4 kB    00:00\r\nrhel-i386-server-5        100% |=========================| 1.4 kB    00:00\r\nrhel-i386-server-vt-5     100% |=========================| 1.4 kB    00:00\r\nrhel-i386-server-cluster- 100% |=========================| 1.4 kB    00:00\r\nrhel-i386-server-suppleme 100% |=========================| 1.2 kB    00:00\r\nrhn-tools-rhel-i386-serve 100% |=========================| 1.2 kB    00:00\r\nReading repository metadata in from local files\r\nTraceback (most recent call last):\r\n  File \"\/usr\/bin\/yum\", line 29, in ?\r\n    yummain.main(sys.argv[1:])\r\n  File \"\/usr\/share\/yum-cli\/yummain.py\", line 102, in main\r\n    result, resultmsgs = do()\r\n  File \"\/usr\/share\/yum-cli\/cli.py\", line 359, in doCommands\r\n    return self.yum_cli_commands[self.basecmd].doCommand(self, self.basecmd,\r\nself.extcmds)\r\n  File \"\/usr\/lib\/yum-plugins\/security.py\", line 193, in doCommand\r\n    md_info = ysp_gen_metadata(self)\r\n  File \"\/usr\/lib\/yum-plugins\/security.py\", line 58, in ysp_gen_metadata\r\n    md_info.add(repo)\r\n  File \"\/usr\/lib\/python2.4\/site-packages\/yum\/update_md.py\", line 235, in add\r\n    for event, elem in iterparse(infile):\r\n  File \"<string>\", line 64, in __iter__\r\nSyntaxError: not well-formed (invalid token): line 767, column 15<\/pre>\n
RedHat Bug 428819 at
\nhttps:\/\/bugzilla.redhat.com\/show_bug.cgi?id=428819
\nand Bug 470932 at
\nhttps:\/\/bugzilla.redhat.com\/show_bug.cgi?id=470932
\nexplained it as “unescaped ‘&’, ‘<‘, ‘>’ in updateinfo.xml and failing yum-security plugin”
\nand released an errata at
\nhttp:\/\/rhn.redhat.com\/errata\/RHBA-2008-1005.html<\/p>\n
However, this errata does not work on my boxes since they are not Network Satellite.<\/p>\n
By understanding the detail of the error, a custom fix can be done in the following way:<\/p>\n
[root@mybox ~]cd \/usr\/lib\/python2.4\/site-packages\/yum
\n[root@mybox yum]nano +376 update_md.py<\/p>\n
and insert the following part:<\/p>\n
        buffile = open('\/root\/pup.buf', 'w')\r\n        for line in infile:\r\n            if \"<domain>\" in line:\r\n                line = line.replace('<domain>', '[domain]')\r\n            if \"<pid>\" in line:\r\n                line = line.replace('<pid>', '[pid]')\r\n            if \"<dev>\" in line:\r\n                line = line.replace('<dev>', '[dev]')\r\n            if \"<device>\" in line:\r\n                line = line.replace('<device>', '[device]')\r\n            if \"<head>\" in line:\r\n                line = line.replace('<head>', '[head]')\r\n            if \"<Unknown>\" in line:\r\n                line = line.replace('<Unknown>', '[Unknown]')\r\n            if \"<Shift>\" in line:\r\n                line = line.replace('<Shift>', '[Shift]')\r\n            if \"<Tab>\" in line:\r\n                line = line.replace('<Tab>', '[Tab]')\r\n            if \"<Directory>\" in line:\r\n                line = line.replace('<Directory>', '[Directory]')\r\n            if \"<locale>\" in line:\r\n                line = line.replace('<locale>', '[locale]')\r\n            if \"<source>\" in line:\r\n                line = line.replace('<source>', '[source]')\r\n            if \"<dest>\" in line:\r\n                line = line.replace('<dest>', '[dest]')\r\n            if \"<file>\" in line:\r\n                line = line.replace('<file>', '[file]')\r\n            if \"<NUM>\" in line:\r\n                line = line.replace('<NUM>', '[NUM]')\r\n            if \"<path_to_file>\" in line:\r\n                line = line.replace('<path_to_file>', '[path_to_file]')\r\n            if \"<TD>\" in line:\r\n                line = line.replace('<TD>', '[TD]')\r\n            if \"<Target\" in line:\r\n                line = line.replace('<Target', '[Target')\r\n            if \"Tag>\" in line:\r\n                line = line.replace('Tag>', 'Tag]')\r\n            if \"&\" in line:\r\n                line = line.replace('&', 'a')\r\n            if \"<<\" in line:\r\n                line = line.replace('<<', '[[')\r\n            if \">>\" in line:\r\n                line = line.replace('>>', ']]')\r\n            if \" < \" in line:\r\n                line = line.replace(' < ', ' lt ')\r\n            if \" > \" in line:\r\n                line = line.replace(' > ', ' gt ')\r\n            buffile.write(line)\r\n        buffile.close()\r\n        infile = open('\/root\/pup.buf', 'rt')<\/pre>\n
in between<\/p>\n
            infile = obj<\/pre>\n
and<\/p>\n
        for event, elem in iterparse(infile):<\/pre>\n
This will restore the proper operation of pup and yum list-security.<\/p>\n
PS. The list has grown too long.  The working update_md.py files is here<\/a>.<\/p>\n
If it does not work, you can check the error and put in more replacement filters.<\/p>\n
Enjoy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The RHEL5 machines under my administration experienced an interesting error.\u00a0 If running pup, whenever there are updates exist, it crashes with the error: SyntaxError: not well-formed (invalid token) The error message will be things like # yum list-security Loading “rhnplugin” plugin Loading “security” plugin Setting up repositories rhel-i386-server-cluster- 100% |=========================| 1.4 kB 00:00 rhel-i386-server-5 100% […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-69","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-my-father-collected-a-few-chinese-antiques-as-shown-here","category-computer-tips","post-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/csic.som.emory.edu\/~lzhou\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/csic.som.emory.edu\/~lzhou\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/csic.som.emory.edu\/~lzhou\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/csic.som.emory.edu\/~lzhou\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/csic.som.emory.edu\/~lzhou\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=69"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/csic.som.emory.edu\/~lzhou\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/csic.som.emory.edu\/~lzhou\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=69"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/csic.som.emory.edu\/~lzhou\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=69"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/csic.som.emory.edu\/~lzhou\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=69"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}