how make sure yum installs <= i586?

I posted this on fedora.general, without success, so any help appreciated.

I'm running fc6 on an old i586 machine. yum updates the kernel correctly 
   (that is, kernel.i586), and does not install glibc.i686.

But, it continues to install openssl.i686, which causes no end of 
trouble, because this a remote machine. openssl.i686 hoses sshd and rpm. 
  So someone actually has to crawl though a long shaftway, and set the 
machine to allow telnet.

I have exactarch=1.

cat /etc/yum.conf
[main]
cachedir=/var/cache/yum
keepcache=0
debuglevel=2
logfile=/var/log/yum.log
pkgpolicy=newest
distroverpkg=redhat-release
tolerant=1
exactarch=1
obsoletes=1
gpgcheck=1
plugins=1
metadata_expire=1800

  uname -p
i586

cat fedora-updates.repo
[updates]
name=Fedora Core $releasever - $basearch - Updates
#baseurl=http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux/core/updates/$releasever/$basearch/
mirrorlist=http://mirrors.fedoraproject.org/mirrorlist?repo=updates-released-fc$releasever&arch=$basearch
enabled=1
gpgcheck=1
gpgkey=file:///etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-fedora
........

I have no i686 packages installed:
rpm -q glibc
glibc-2.5-18.fc6.i386