One of the most under utilised things around in any CentOS sysadmins toolset is the rpm-metadata repositories. Some part of it comes from the fact that most people consider it to be yum specific, and while thats true to quite an extent - its not the only use for the rpm-metadata info. The bottom line is that rpm-metadata is a collection of information extract from the rpms contained in the repository and contains a lot of content, state and depenencies.

Over the course of next week, starting on the 26th September I'm going to run through a week of rpm-metadata tricks. One new cool thing to do with the info contained in the repo metadata's every day.

Some of these things are perhaps good candidates for yum plugins, but I'll try and stay clear of any dependancy on yum and also try and cover as many languages as possible : atleast ruby, python, php, bash and lua! Stay tuned.

- KB