corrupt rpmdb in mock-chroot

[Paul B Schroeder]

On Mon, 2008-06-02 at 08:25 -0500, Dennis Gilmore wrote:
> On Monday 02 June 2008, Paul B Schroeder wrote:
> > On Sat, 2008-05-31 at 22:16 -0400, Jon Stanley wrote:
> > > On Sat, May 31, 2008 at 7:04 PM, Paul B Schroeder
> > >
> > > <paul.schroeder at bluecoat.com> wrote:
> > > > Rebuilding the rpm database seems to fix this, but it's a pain to be
> > > > sure.  Any ideas as to why I'm seeing this corruption when creating an
> > > > i386 mock chroot from a x86_64 system?
> > >
> > > This is normal and expected.  You created the rpmdb with x86_64 rpm,
> > > and are accessing it with i386 rpm.  The Berkeley DB format is
> > > different based on the arch of the creating machine, therefore
> > > generates the database differently on the two platforms.  If I plan on
> > > doing anything in a chroot (especially a non-native arch one) other
> > > than building a SRPM, the first thing that happens is to rm -f
> > > /var/lib/rpm/__db*.  Don't worry, this got me the first time too (and
> > > is fatal to a pungi compose) :)
> >
> > Ah..  I see..  I would think there would be some way to tell it to
> > create the DB in i386 format though?  Is there an environment variable
> > or something that can be set?
> 
> No,  the hosts rpm is used to populate the chroot.  when you enter the chroot 
> you can delete /var/lib/rpm/__db*  and things will work.

> You get the same issues with building say F-7 chroots on a F-9 host where the 
> chroot has a different version of the the database than the host.
> 
I understand how it's working.  (Although, I didn't know Berkely DB had
diff formats for diff archs beforehand)  But I was hoping there might be
a way (in my Makefiles) to tell my x86_64 host's rpm to always operate
in i386 mode.

I can live with it, but I am setting up a build environment for other
(read less Linux literate) folks to use.  I'd like to head off any
forthcoming confusion if possible.

Cheers...Paul...