rpm error message, some more detail would be nice.

Paul Nasrat pnasrat at redhat.com
Tue Sep 7 12:16:07 UTC 2004


On Tue, Sep 07, 2004 at 05:01:37AM -0700, Steve G wrote:
> >> $ rpm -e kernel-2.6.5-1.358 kernel-2.6.8-1.541
> >> error: can't create transaction lock
> 
> >Doesn't this assume that ALL transaction lock problems are permissions
> >related?

> No. There are a variety of reasons why this might fail. There's more than one
> value for errno returned.

Indeed there might be another write rpm operation happening!
> 
> >Does rpm have the capability to inherently know that its a permission
> >problem? 
> errno is set, its just a matter of using it in the error message.

This is fair enough

> >Can you assume that every rpm installation in use requires root?

> This is actually a good point. rpm should check the uid to see if its root.
> If not print a warning that there may be permission problems and re-run as
> root to avoid this warning. This patch has been on my todo list for a while. 

I'm not sure that's ideal behaviour - it is possible to use things such as
--dbpath and --root (ignoring not being able to move the transaction lock for
the moment).  I wouldn't expect a failed (EPERM) rm command to suggest
rerunning as root, likewise for rpm.

Also theoretically we could have a "package_installer_r" with selinux to enable
certain rpm install operations.

As always bugzilla or rpm-list the best places for RFEs or this sort of
discussion.

Paul





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