yum, createrepo, hashlib, rhel5/centos5 and sha256sums

There’s been a fair bit of confusion about things with the change to sha256 checksums in yum/createrepo. Here’s a bit of a summary if you’re dealing with it and rhel5/centos5:

If you want to consume metadata created with sha256 checksums and you’re on el5 you need:

1. python-hashlib – rpms here: http://skvidal.fedorapeople.org/hashlib/

2. yum 3.2.19 – in rhel5.3, coming soon on centos 5.3

That’s it!

If you want to generate metadata with sha256 checksums and you’re on el5 you need:

1. yum from rawhide 😦 – or wait for the upcoming yum 3.2.22 release – not likely to be driven to el5 itself.

2. createrepo from rawhide or wait for the upcoming 0.9.7 release. (You will have to upgrade your own createrepo from 0.4.X stock with el5 – changing to this version is unlikely inside el5 itself.)

3. python-hashlib

Hope this helps.