I'm not sure where Yum gets that, but there is an /etc/redhat-release 
that contains that information, perhaps it is getting it there?

Quoting "Smith, Craig A (MN14)" <Craig.A.Smith at honeywell.com>:

> I have a couple old systems that were upgraded from Red Hat 7.2 to 7.3.
> The Fedora Legacy Project says they will discontinue support for Red Hat
> Linux 7.3 and 9 effective December 31st of this year (2006).
> http://fedoralegacy.org/
>
> I want to do one final update, but yum still thinks it's running 7.2.
> Where does Yum get the $releasever variable?
>
> # cat /proc/version
> Linux version 2.4.20-28.7 (bhcompile at porky.devel.redhat.com) (gcc
> version 2.96 20000731 (Red Hat Linux 7.3 2.96-126)) #1 Thu Dec 18
> 11:31:59 EST 2003
>
> # yum update
> Gathering package information from servers
> Getting headers from: Red Hat Linux 7.2 base
> Getting headers from: Fedora Legacy utilities for Red Hat Linux 7.2
> Getting headers from: Red Hat Linux 7.2 updates
> Finding updated packages
> Downloading needed headers
> No Packages Available for Update
> No actions to take
>
> # cat /etc/yum.conf
> [main]
> cachedir=/var/cache/yum
> debuglevel=2
> logfile=/var/log/yum.log
> pkgpolicy=newest
> exactarch=1
> exclude=kernel*
>
> [base]
> name=Red Hat Linux $releasever base
> baseurl=http://download.fedoralegacy.org/redhat/$releasever/os/$basearch
> gpgcheck=1
>
> [updates]
> name=Red Hat Linux $releasever updates
> baseurl=http://download.fedoralegacy.org/redhat/$releasever/updates/$bas
> earch
> gpgcheck=1
>
> [legacy-utils]
> name=Fedora Legacy utilities for Red Hat Linux $releasever
> baseurl=http://download.fedoralegacy.org/redhat/$releasever/legacy-utils
> /$basearch
> gpgcheck=1
>
>
> Thanks.
>
> == Craig A. Smith
>
>
>
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