Force reinstallation of packages Was: [CentOS] Root-filesystem remounts as read-only during 5.2 upgrade (system completely shoot)

[Bernhard Gschaider]

>>>>> On Thu, 26 Jun 2008 06:51:35 -0400
>>>>> "WLM" == William L Maltby <CentOS4Bill at triad.rr.com> wrote:

    WLM> WARNING! Due to my background, I don't often read man pages
    WLM> like I used to. So there may be some inaccuracies or
    WLM> ambiguities below.

    WLM> On Thu, 2008-06-26 at 11:58 +0200, Bernhard Gschaider wrote:
    >> <snip>

    >> Sorry. Stupid question again: and if I find inconsistencies,
    >> then the

    WLM> Keep in mind that *some* inconsistencies are expected. Local
    WLM> config files being one good example. You must look at the
    WLM> codes displayed in the output, and possibly the files, to be
    WLM> sure it is really a discrepancy.

I know. I compared with the verify-output from a working machine. For
my theory ("there are different rpm-packages on the disk than in the
rpm-database") to be right there should be a large amounts of files
with wrong MD5-sums. And there is only a handful for which this is the
case (and they seem mostly harmless)
 
    >> only way to force rpm to correct them yould be something like
    >> 
    >> yum remove offendingPackage yum install offendingPackage
    >> 
    >> or the equivalent rpm-commands?

    WLM> Not the only way, but probably the safest. However, that may
    WLM> try to also remove some dependencies, depending on the
    WLM> package you're trying to remove.

Yep. That's what I was afraid of

    WLM> I seem to recall a "force" parameter that is available for
    WLM> rpm and yum.  Although normally disparaged, this is a perfect
    WLM> situation for its use.

It exists in RPM, but in yum it is notoriously absent

    >> Currently the machine behaves quite strange: - Boots OK - Lets
    >> users log in and most applications work - Firefox works only
    >> for root - yumex hangs at starting

    WLM> Depending on your time-frame, this may be a symptom of the
    WLM> load on the servers you access. Yesterday A.M. I saw *BIG*
    WLM> delays downloading the xml(?) files. But I use yum CLI, so I
    WLM> see the blood-n-guts on the screen. <BIAS> GUIs suck... in
    WLM> general</BIAS>

yum works. The problem according to an "strace yum" seems to be that
it is poll-ing on something, but I don't know on what, because I don't
get the arguments to that call, because it never finishes (last line
just says "poll("

    >> - "man rpm" says XXX WARNING: old character encoding and/or
    >> character set
    >> 
    >> All this leads me to the conclusion that there are only some
    >> selected packages corrupt (and I don't want to reinstall the
    >> machine). Would Installing/Repairing from DVD help?

    WLM> Maybe. But some of the rpms might be on your system from the
    WLM> update activities. Do and updatedb and then a locate
    WLM> .rpm. You may see some in /var/cache/yum. Subdirs under it
    WLM> might have what you need.

I'll try that. If it doesn't help I'll have to scratch the machine and
install anew.

Thanks
Bernhard