[CentOS] yum problem with glibc

[Timothy Murphy]

Johnny Hughes wrote:

> Based on your errors, what I would do is this:

Thanking you again for all your help.
I have one last question, and then I promise to ask no more!
Could the rpm --force suggestion you make possibly stop the server working?

> 1.   You only need 1 version of glibc-common.x86_64. 
...
> I would figure out exactly what packages I had installed for glibc and
> get them all on one version ... you need to be careful with glibc (and
> its sub packages) ... it is the most important package on your machine.
> 
> How I would do this is that I would download all the RPMs for the latest
> version of all the packages you have installed ... for me that would be:
> 
> glibc-devel-2.12-1.47.el6_2.12.x86_64.rpm
> glibc-headers-2.12-1.47.el6_2.12.x86_64.rpm
> glibc-2.12-1.47.el6_2.12.i686.rpm
> glibc-common-2.12-1.47.el6_2.12.x86_64.rpm
> glibc-2.12-1.47.el6_2.12.x86_64.rpm
> nscd-2.12-1.47.el6_2.12.x86_64.rpm

I've downloaded all these to /tmp/glibc/

> Once I had them all in the same directory, I would try a:
> 
> rpm -Uvh *.rpm
> 
> then I would look at the errors

I get the same error as before:
-----------------------------
[tim at alfred glibc]$ sudo rpm -Uvh *.rpm
error: Failed dependencies:
        glibc = 2.12-1.47.el6_2.9 is needed by (installed) glibc-
common-2.12-1.47.el6_2.9.x86_64
-----------------------------

> based on those errors (if it does not install) then I would likely do:
> 
> rpm -Uvh --force *.rpm
> 
> that will LIKELY clean up your rpm issues for glibc ... but if you don't
> understand the errors, post those here.

Now this is my last question:
Can I be reasonably (say 90%) sure that the above command
will not stop the server running?

The problem is that the server is a long way away (in another country)
and I won't have any way of contacting it if it stops running.

I don't really need to do anything, 
as it seems to be running fine as it is -
the update problem doesn't appear to have any deleterious effect.
I can perfectly well leave it until I can deal with the issue on site,
and even re-install CentOS if necessary.

But I guess the problem does raise one general issue,
which maybe others are puzzled by,
and that is why x86_64 and i386 programs are both apparently needed?
Why specifically does glibc-common-2.12-1.47.el6_2.9.x86_64
seem to require glibc-2.12-1.47.el6_2.9, according to the message above?

> 2.  For bash, I would:
> 
> rpm -e  bash-4.1.2-8.el6.centos.x86_64
> 
> then I would reinstall the other bash
> 
> yum reinstall bash-4.1.2-9.el6_2.x86_64

I've followed your advice for bash,
and seem to have removed this problem at least.


-- 
Timothy Murphy  
e-mail: gayleard /at/ eircom.net
tel: +353-86-2336090, +353-1-2842366
s-mail: School of Mathematics, Trinity College Dublin