Resolved Is it safe to remove psa-courier-unicode ?

[Linulex]

We used to use courier, but switched more then 3 years ago to dovecot.

Now after every plesk update we get the message that "psa-courier-unicode" needs to be updated. Can i remove this rpm without problems?

regards
Jan

 

[Bitpalast]

Great questions. That is definitely something we're also interested in.

 

[Monty]

I've been using Courier previously too and there are no psa-courier-* packages anymore on the servers. So i _guess_ it might be safe to remove that package but I would test it first.
It would be interesting to see the output of rpm -ql psa-courier-unicode (or dpkg -L psa-courier-unicode if it's a Debian based OS) to see which files are included in that package.
And also rpm -q --whatrequires psa-courier-unicode

 

[Bitpalast]

# rpm -ql psa-courier-unicode
/usr/lib64/libcourier-unicode.so.7
/usr/lib64/libcourier-unicode.so.7.0.0
/usr/share/doc/psa-courier-unicode-2.2.3
/usr/share/doc/psa-courier-unicode-2.2.3/AUTHORS
/usr/share/doc/psa-courier-unicode-2.2.3/COPYING
/usr/share/doc/psa-courier-unicode-2.2.3/ChangeLog
/usr/share/doc/psa-courier-unicode-2.2.3/INSTALL
/usr/share/doc/psa-courier-unicode-2.2.3/README

# rpm -q --whatrequires psa-courier-unicode
no package requires psa-courier-unicode

 

[Monty]

Looks pretty safe to remove it, to me.
In case anything breaks after removal you could still install it again from https://autoinstall.plesk.com/pool/...2.centos.7+p18.0.40.0+t211012.1733.x86_64.rpm

 

[Bitpalast]

O.k. like in all good crime and horror stories @Linulex pass through the door first and tell me how it went ...

Honestly, I think I'll need to test this on a test server first, but currently, for this scenario I don't want to sacrifice a machine and the installation hours if something goes wrong. How can we be sure that there is not some awkward super special construct somewhere, e.g. for IMAP, that uses these libs. I know that courier imap is still running here, and I have a guts feeling that there could be an issue when removing the above mentioned library.

 

[VNick]

You may remove the package as long as Plesk Installer reports Dovecot is in use (rather than Courier-IMAP).

 

[Bitpalast]

# rpm -e --nodeps `rpm -q --whatprovides psa-courier-unicode`
has removed the package. Dovecot still working. Postfix still working. Umlauts good.

Edit: According to @VNick the better way to do it is:
# yum remove psa-courier-unicode

 

[Linulex]

I know that courier imap is still running here, and I have a guts feeling that there could be an issue when removing the above mentioned library.

Obvisiously you don't want to remove it from servers that use courier.

I am going to removed it from a few servers and will see if anything goes wrong.

 

[Linulex]

Removed it from a few servers and no problems so far. So i guess its safe to remove ... as long as you don't use courier offcourse.

 

[VNick]

Please don't use --nodeps or even rpm for removal. This way you don't guarantee package system consistency. Just use yum remove instead and review other packages (if any) that would be removed.

 

[Bitpalast]

Please don't use --nodeps or even rpm for removal. This way you don't guarantee package system consistency. Just use yum remove instead and review other packages (if any) that would be removed.

In that case, the FAQ article on MariaDB updates should be reviewed, because there the removal of the old MariaDB server software is desribed exactly with that command.

 

[VNick]

Of course, there are cases when package system must be temporarily broken to achieve the needed result. Plesk packages removal is generally not one of them.

 

[Monty]

In that case, the FAQ article on MariaDB updates should be reviewed, because there the removal of the old MariaDB server software is desribed exactly with that command.

The FAQ article is correct IMHO: You have to use --nodeps when you remove MariaDB during an upgrade as many other packages depend on it. Without --nodeps it would remove most of your Plesk packages, rendering your system useless.
However, as a newer version of MariaDB is installed again right after removal of the old MariaDB packages, the dependencies are satisfied again.

 

[Bitpalast]

This is great food for thought and a good opportunity for learning, thank you again.

So generally speaking, we should use yum remove, but in cases where there are dependencies that must not be touched, the rpm nodeps option is the right choice. I never before gave this enough attention.

For the Courier-IMAP package however I saw

# rpm -q --whatrequires psa-courier-unicode
no package requires psa-courier-unicode

which in turn should mean that rpm nodeps cannot cause any damage, because there are no dependencies, correct?

 

[Monty]

Yes, your dependencies should still be intact.

Basically I'm following this principle:
If I want to remove a package for good then I'll always use "yum remove". Yum will tell me if there are any other packages that depend on the one I'm about to remove. Just make sure you don't use the "-y" switch to "yum remove", you can always cancel the operation if you see that some other packages are about to be removed too.

And if I want to replace a package (like in the MariaDB upgrade case) then I'll do it directly with rpm -e --nodeps. But of course this requires that the new package has the same dependencies as the old one, otherwise you'll end up with broken dependencies (which is a nightmare...)