Hi Tom,
It's quite strange that the yum installation is randomly failing. Are you installing your own user defined Linux OS or using the included CentOS?
We are using the included CentOS
Please try the steps below to debug the issue when yum has not been installed.
1. From the AXP prompt check the /var/log/messages.log file for error messages. Type: 'show log name messages.log interactive' and search for rpm errors.
This returned about 3 meg worth of text and the only result in searching for rpm was the following.
Feb 6 19:54:06 localhost err_handler: 2012 Feb 6 19:54:06 UTC +0000: err_handler: rpm-libs-4.4.2-48
Let me know if you want the logfile with the messages.log and how you want me to get it to you.
2. In the guest shell of your application check the third_party_rpms_repository directory and make sure all the rpms are there.
In the guest shell on a working and on a non working install I do not see any sign of the directory or the rpms. However on the working Yum and all of the other third party rpms are installed and working. To me it appears as though on the failed install that the third party rpm directory is completely ignored during the install process.
3. In the guest shell of your application try to install the yum rpm and check if any errors occur. There will probably be a dependency error from which you can work backwards to determine the cause.
Thanks,
Brett