external rpm dependency resolution

[Stijn De Weirdt]

hi all,

i'm looking into rpm dependency resolution for an admin tool and i was 
wondering if existing smart code (or api) could be of any help. (as i am 
no real rpm guru/expert, i'm very afraid of starting from scratch).
any hints or help is very welcome.

the situation is as follows:
the tool deploys a static list of rpms and repositories to a machine, 
where all rpms are checked for removal or installation against the local 
rpmdb. (one of the main reasons of this is to have a form of version 
control on the rpms installed on the boxes).

the problem arises when making this static rpm list. the main annoyance 
we are currently facing is that during deployment of the machine 
configuration, we sometimes have dependency problems (missing rpms, 
wrong version, file conflicts) that we like to resolve before deploying 
and preferably without having to do test installs (there are lots of 
different machine types and architecures. setting up and maintaining a 
tesbed is not the preferred option).
(the generation of this list using update/upgrade-like commands would 
also be a very nice feature)

as most rpm management solutions nowadays seem to do this using local 
rpmdb and the metadata of the repositories, i'm interested in the 
opinion of the smart experts on how to best tackle this.

the main os is a rhel clone (Scientific Linux), we need support for 
mixed architectures (i386 and x86_64) and we can generate any kind of 
metadata that would be needed.

if you need some more detail, i'm more than happy to provide it.

many thanks,

stijn