Notification shown that packages will be downgraded when migrating from SLES12 SP3 to SP4

This document (7023653) is provided subject to the disclaimer at the end of this document.

Environment

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 Service Pack 3 (SLES 12 SP3)

Situation

While migrating from SLES 12 SP3 to SLES 12 SP4 using e.g. the "zypper migration" command there is a notification shown that some of the installed packages and/or patterns are going to be "downgraded".

Depending on the packages installed on the system the package and pattern names might differ, for example:

The following 38 packages are going to be downgraded:
acl autoyast2 autoyast2-installation dracut glibc glibc-32bit glibc-i18ndata glibc-locale glibc-locale-32bit iscsiuio libacl1 libacl1-32bit libLLVM libLLVM-32bit
libopeniscsiusr0_2_0 libpcsclite1 libyui-ncurses-pkg7 libyui-qt-pkg7 nscd open-iscsi patterns-sles-32bit patterns-sles-base patterns-sles-base-32bit
patterns-sles-documentation patterns-sles-documentation-32bit patterns-sles-Minimal patterns-sles-Minimal-32bit patterns-sles-x11 patterns-sles-x11-32bit
patterns-sles-yast2 patterns-sles-yast2-32bit pcsc-lite perl-Bootloader ruby2.1-rubygem-cfa_grub2 xf86-video-qxl xorg-x11-server xorg-x11-server-extra yast2-snapper

The following 11 patterns are going to be downgraded:
32bit base documentation Minimal sles-base-32bit sles-documentation-32bit sles-Minimal-32bit sles-x11-32bit sles-yast2 x11 yast2

Resolution

Verify the corresponding packages using the following two commands:

# rpm -q --changelog <package_name>

The command will show the changelog of the corresponding rpm file , see the Additional Information section below for examples.

# rpm -qi <package_name>

The command will show the information of the corresponding rpm file, see the Additional Information section below for examples.

Cause

The messages are misleading here since the only thing that changed between the service packs is that the release version number changed. The packages however do contain all the latest released BUG fixes and are up-to date packages.

Additional Information

To verify the status of the "dracut" package:

# rpm -q --changelog dracut | less

SLES 12 SP3:

* Migg Okt 31 2018 daniel.molkentin@suse.com
- Avoid executing emergency hook twice
* Adds 0555-Avoid-executing-emergency-hooks-twice.patch
- 95nfs: If no server is configured, read BOOTSERVERADDR from wicked's leaseinf
(boo#1089332)
...

SLES 12 SP4:

* Migg Okt 31 2018 daniel.molkentin@suse.com
- 98dracut-systemd: Start systemd-vconsole-setup before dracut-cmdline-ask
(bsc#1055834)
* adds 0582-98dracut-systemd-Start-systemd-vconsole-setup-before.patch
- Mark the DASD udev rules host-only and handle backslashes in paths for
hostonly files (bsc#1090884)
* adds 0583-99base-Allow-files-with-backslashes-in-hostonly-file.patch
* adds 0584-95dasd_rules-mark-dasd-rules-host_only.patch
...

# rpm -qi dracut

SLES 12 SP3:

Name        : dracut
Version     : 044.1
Release     : 114.20.1
Architecture: x86_64
Install Date: Free 18. Jan 2019 11:30:23 CET
Group       : System/Base
Size        : 1143242
License     : GPL-2.0-or-later AND LGPL-2.1-or-later
Signature   : RSA/SHA256, Free 09. Nov 2018 14:47:36 CET, Key ID 70af9e8139db7c82
Source RPM : dracut-044.1-114.20.1.src.rpm
Build Date : Free 09. Nov 2018 14:47:08 CET
...

SLES 12 SP4:

Name        : dracut
Version     : 044.1
Release     : 10.3.1
Architecture: x86_64
Install Date: Ding 15. Jan 2019 16:35:28 CET
Group       : System/Base
Size        : 1143109
License     : GPL-2.0-or-later AND LGPL-2.1-or-later
Signature   : RSA/SHA256, Ding 20. Nov 2018 16:24:47 CET, Key ID 70af9e8139db7c82
Source RPM : dracut-044.1-10.3.1.src.rpm
Build Date : Ding 20. Nov 2018 16:24:18 CET
...

As can be seen from both the changelog and the information for the package, the actual build date and the applied bugfixes/patches show that they are actual up to date packages. An additional example showing the information for the "autoyast2" package:

# rpm -q --changelog autoyast2 | less

SLES 12 SP3:

* Migg Sep 19 2018 schubi@suse.de
- Handle DASD or zFCP devices even when the profile is not in a remote location (bsc#1108829).
- 3.2.31
...

SLES 12 SP4:

* Migg Sep 19 2018 schubi@suse.de
- Handle DASD or zFCP devices even when the profile is not in a remote location (bsc#1108829).
- 3.2.31
...

# rpm -qi autoyast2

SLES 12 SP3:

Name        : autoyast2
Version     : 3.2.31
Release     : 2.29.1
Architecture: noarch
Install Date: Free 07. Dez 2018 11:01:43 CET
Group       : System/YaST
Size        : 1144691
License     : GPL-2.0-only
Signature   : RSA/SHA256, Ding 25. Sep 2018 08:50:15 CEST, Key ID 70af9e8139db7c82
Source RPM : autoyast2-3.2.31-2.29.1.src.rpm
Build Date : Ding 25. Sep 2018 08:49:50 CEST
...

SLES 12 SP4:

Name        : autoyast2
Version     : 3.2.31
Release     : 1.19
Architecture: noarch
Install Date: Ding 15. Jan 2019 16:37:04 CET
Group       : System/YaST
Size        : 1144867
License     : GPL-2.0-only
Signature   : RSA/SHA256, Migg 31. Okt 2018 17:23:10 CET, Key ID 70af9e8139db7c82
Source RPM : autoyast2-3.2.31-1.19.src.rpm
Build Date : Migg 31. Okt 2018 17:22:46 CET
...

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