• Describe the issue

The "updated_date" fields on EPEL's errata / advisories / updateinfo are updated daily, despite no change to the actual metadata or package lists. This causes problems for repository management tools such as Pulp, which sees that the "updated_date" has changed, and that therefore the repository has changed, and that therefore the repository metadata needs to be republished each time (unnecessarily).

"updated_date" should preferably only be changed when the advisory itself has been updated. Updating it daily, devalues its usefulness as a component of the metadata.

This issue was reported to us by a user and filed in our issue here: https://pulp.plan.io/issues/8229

• If we cannot complete your request, what is the impact?

Increased computational load for all users of Pulp (and potentially other tools) as well as all downstream consumers of those tools. e.g. Pulp is used by Katello / Foreman projects do repository management, and therefore used by RH Satellite.

Simply ignoring "updated_date" would be sub-optimal because we semi-frequently encounter advisories that were updated without changing the "version" metadata appropriately. It becomes deeply problematic to calculate changed updateinfo / errata / advisories if neither of these fields can be relied upon.

• When do you need this? (YYYY/MM/DD)

N/A

• When is this no longer needed or useful?

N/A