[CentOS] NetworkManager invalid numeric argument

[Filipe Brandenburger]

Hi,

On Mon, Sep 21, 2009 at 14:38, Brian Becker <emaillists at beckerspace.com> wrote:
> Got the following error running the latest yum update, any thoughts?
>
> useradd: invalid numeric argument 'avahi-autoipd'
> error: %pre(NetworkManager-0.7.0-4.el5_3.i386) scriptlet failed, exit status 3
> error:   install: %pre scriptlet failed (2), skipping
> NetworkManager-0.7.0-4.el5_3

You can see the %pre script that NetworkManager-0.7.0-4.el5_3.i386
will install with the following command (assuming you have the rpm
file, look for it under /var/cache/yum):

$ rpm -qp --script /path/to/.../NetworkManager-0.7.0-4.el5_3.i386.rpm

It will show you it is trying to execute this script:

preinstall scriptlet (using /bin/sh):
# avahi-autoipd stuff
/usr/sbin/groupadd -f -r avahi-autoipd
/usr/bin/id avahi-autoipd >/dev/null 2>&1 || \
        /usr/sbin/useradd -r -g avahi-autoipd -c 'avahi-autoipd' -s
/sbin/nologin -d /var/lib/avahi-autoipd avahi-autoipd

>From the error message, it seems to be complaining about the "-g
avahi-autoipd", which would give you an error message if the
"avahi-autoipd" group does not exist. However, that is strange,
considering the previous command "groupadd -f -r avahi-autoipd" is
trying to create that group, and the "-f" should make it fail (and
abort the script) if it cannot create the group...

Does the group exist on your system? What does "grep avahi-autoipd
/etc/group" return? What does "getent group avahi-autoipd" return?
What happens if you execute "/usr/sbin/groupadd -f -r avahi-autoipd"
as root on the machine? Does the RPM install successfully after
running that command?

HTH,
Filipe