On Fri, 2006-07-07 at 07:13 -0400, Matt Hyclak wrote:
On Thu, Jul 06, 2006 at 05:40:10PM -0700, Bart Schaefer enlightened us:
<snip>
I got an error message from db4 saying to "RUN RECOVERY".
I did "rpm --rebuilddb" which may have been the wrong thing -- it issued an error about "pages missing". I then ran it again, and it came back with no errors, but after rebooting (for the kernel update) "rpm -qa" lists only a dozen packages or so, of which "rpm" is not one, and "yum check-update" chokes, showing Null for $releasever and the empty string for $basearch.
This was a brand-new system, so I'm thinking I'll just download the 3.7 ISOs and re-install, but on the off chance there's some other way to recover from this I thought I'd ask. There doesn't seem to be anything missing other than a large chunk of the RPM database itself.
Coincidentally, there is a thread regarding this happening right now over on the nahant mailing list:
https://www.redhat.com/archives/nahant-list/2006-July/msg00011.html
Having been around (but nevertheless still ignorant of RPM) when RPM suffered the indignity of having its DBM upgraded, I have been creating three yum-based lists in /var after each update. The one which I think I love the most is the installed list. However, my ardor may be misplaced due to my relative ignorance about these things. My thinking is that I can use that list, with a small amount of scripting and/or manual editing, to recover the rpmdb if I need to. I could also make a list from RPM itself, but I like the "trust but verify" philosophy that is satisfied by getting a list from a different source (hmmm... is *that* source trustworthy? ;-).
Anyway, all that presumes that recovery from my periodic backups are not reasonable for some reason.
My question: am I missing the mark? Should I really be doing a list only from RPM or is the YUM list (suf/de)ficient?
Matt
TIA