Rear2.3 asking for :genisoimage for RHEL 5.8

[nirmal21s]

Relax-and-Recover (ReaR) Issue Template

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• ReaR version ("/usr/sbin/rear -V"): 2.3

• OS version ("cat /etc/rear/os.conf" or "lsb_release -a" or "cat /etc/os-release"):RHEL 5.8
  Arch : i686

• Brief description of the issue:
  When trying to install the REAR 2.3 rpm for RHEL 5 its not getting installed .
  It requires Genisoimage.
  There is no package genisoimage available for RH5.
  Is there any workaround available to make it work.

geniso_error.txt

excerpts:

yum install rear-2.3-185.git.0.d642b65.unknown.el5.i386.rpm 
...
Error: Missing Dependency: genisoimage is needed by package rear-2.3-185.git.0.d642b65.unknown.el5.i386 (/rear-2.3-185.git.0.d642b65.unknown.el5.i386)
 You could try using --skip-broken to work around the problem

[jsmeix]

I am not a RHEL user but I would ignore that yum error
(i.e. force yum to install it nevertheless).

What you need is a 'genisoimage' compatible program
on your RHEL system installed but it does not matter
from which RPM package name it comes.

A 'genisoimage' compatible program is ususually called during
"rear mkrescue/mkbackup" when the ReaR recovery system
ISO image is made (i.e in case of OUTPUT=ISO).

You can specify your particular 'genisoimage' compatible program
via ISO_MKISOFS_BIN (see its description in default.conf).

[jsmeix]

Since
#1192
and its
a3bf4b6
there is in
https://github.com/rear/rear/blob/master/packaging/rpm/rear.spec

### On RHEL/Fedora the genisoimage packages provides mkisofs
%if %{?centos_version:1}%{?fedora:1}%{?rhel_version:1}0
Requires: crontabs
Requires: iproute
#Requires: mkisofs
Requires: genisoimage
#Requires: redhat-lsb
%endif

which is probably incompatible with RHEL5.

[jsmeix]

@nirmal21s
what is the RPM package name on RHEL5
that provides the 'genisoimage' compatible program?

From the above rear.spec excerpt I guess in RHEL5
the 'genisoimage' compatible program is 'mkisofs'
and its RPM package name is also 'mkisofs'
but we need to be sure what there actually is on RHEL5
(I assume no ReaR developer still uses that somewhat old system).

[gdha]

@nirmal21s @jsmeix Indeed in RHEL5 it was mkisofs that was required.
To get rear installed on RHEL5 do not use yum, but first download (using wget) the rpm and then use the command:

rpm -Uvh --nodeps rear-2.3-185.git.0.d642b65.unknown.el5.i386.rpm

[gdha]

A last comment about RHEL5 - it is unsupported by RedHat since March 2017, so do not expect any fixes in our rear.spec file for it anymore. You can still use the latest rear version, but you need to install it via the work-around given above.
Therefore, I remove the label 'minor bug' and replace it with 'support/question'

[jsmeix]

@gdha
but ReaR still supports RHEL5 because current
https://github.com/rear/rear/blob/master/doc/rear-release-notes.txt
reads (excerpts):

ReaR-2.4 is supported on the following Linux based operating systems:
...
* RHEL 5, 6 and 7
...
ReaR-2.4 dropped officially support for the following Linux based operating systems:
...
* RHEL 3 and 4

Perhaps we should drop official support for RHEL 5 in Rear 2.4?

[gdha]

@jsmeix We will kick it out in ReaR 2.5 as it is still usable with the work-around to given above. We can add it in the release notes (as an add-on).

[jsmeix]

@gdha
anything about RHEL is o.k. for me
(because I am not a RHEL user ;-)

FYI:
I had dropped official support for SLES 10 ReaR 1.17
regardless that even current ReaR should still work with it
because I do not want to get "officially blamed" in any way
if by some change ReaR may no longer work with SLES10, cf.
#1765 (comment)

[jsmeix]

I assume with
#1837 (comment)
this issue can be considered as sufficiently "fixed/solved/done".

[nirmal21s]

@gdha
I tried this option "rpm -Uvh --nodeps rear-2.3-185.git.0.d642b65.unknown.el5.i386.rpm"
It got installed and created ISO image.
But not yet tested.
Hope this works!