Centos – Avoid CentOS 7 upgrade via yum

centosupgradeyum

I help manage a small production server. The server runs a downlevel version of CentOS. CentOS recently announced Release for CentOS Linux 7 (1511) on x86_64.

Running yum update picked up the release and offered 400+ packages upgrades. We would like to prohibit the upgrade at the moment on the production server.

We are most concerned about an accidental upgrade, like a script using -y. We still want to receive updates for the older version of CentOS; we just don't want the OS upgrade.

How can we configure yum to avoid the CentOS 7 upgrade?

Here's what it looks like when we run yum update:

$ sudo yum update
[sudo] password for xxxxxxxx: 
Loaded plugins: fastestmirror
Loading mirror speeds from cached hostfile
 * base: mirror.hostduplex.com
 * epel: linux.mirrors.es.net
 * extras: mirror.hostduplex.com
 * updates: mirror.hostduplex.com
Resolving Dependencies
...
Transaction Summary
================================================================================
Install    2 Packages (+6 Dependent packages)
Upgrade  412 Packages

Total download size: 374 M
Is this ok [y/d/N]:

Here is our yum.conf:

$ cat /etc/yum.conf
[main]
cachedir=/var/cache/yum/$basearch/$releasever
keepcache=0
debuglevel=2
logfile=/var/log/yum.log
exactarch=1
obsoletes=1
gpgcheck=1
plugins=1
installonly_limit=5
bugtracker_url=http://bugs.centos.org/set_project.php?project_id=23&ref=http://bugs.centos.org/bug_report_page.php?category=yum
distroverpkg=centos-release

Here is the section in the manual covering the configuration: 12.4. Configuring yum. But its not obvious to me how to prohibit the upgrade.

Best Answer

This seems to be the same question as How do I keep Centos at version 6.3? and the second answer that might help you achieve what you want: https://serverfault.com/a/500606

Something like this might work: yum --releasever=7.0 update You may have to adapt as I'm not sure what releasever your currently installed CentOS uses, maybe you also need to use 7.1. The latter answers to Yum: How can I view variables like $releasever, $basearch & $YUM0? should help you with that.

Although another source mentions that this might still draw updates from later point releases, see http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-server-73/rhel-yum-update-without-migrating-to-point-releases-4175456496/

FWIW, this was also already asked the same way as How can I keep the RHEL version static (e.g. RHEL 5.1)? but I don't think that solution will work as cleanly as the above or if it will work at all.

Related Question