RPM database

Bevan C. Bennett bevan at fulcrummicro.com
Thu Mar 4 19:35:46 UTC 2004


Pedro Fernandes Macedo wrote:
> I have a little situation here... My raid failed and I lost the /var
> directory , among others.. I managed to make the system start again ,
> but I need to update it (the / and /boot partitions were raid 1 , but
> they werent in sync , dont ask me why..) , because the latest kernel I
> have is 2149... but I can update , because the rpm db is gone.. I cant
> rebuild the rpmdb , because it tries to use /var/lib/rpm/Packages ,
> which is gone also... 
> Any ideas on how to rebuild the db?
> (I cant reinstall the system now.. lots of things depend on this machine
> and I need to do some things before reinstalling it)

/var/lib/rpm/Packages is installed as part of the 'rpm' rpm.
If you grab the .src.rpm you should be able to extract the file and 
re-install it manually. It also -might- work to run "rpm -i --force 
rpm-*.rpm".

If the db is completely gone, you'll probably need to start by creating 
one: "rpm --initdb". At that point you might be able to re-install your 
rpms   with "--justdb" (if all their pieces are still in place) or 
"--force" (if you want the files physically reinstalled).

I've never had to try to rebuild /var from scratch, so I can't really 
say what will and won't work.





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