database mess up

[Patrick Dupre]

On Fri, 23 Jan 2009, Panu Matilainen wrote:

> On Thu, 22 Jan 2009, Patrick Dupre wrote:
>
>>>> Hello,
>>>> 
>>>> For a reason that I ignore my database is totallt mess up.
>>>> rpm --rebuilddb only rebuild iy partially.
>>>> The packages are installed, but rpm --rebuilddb does not see them.
>>>> How can I recover them without resintalling them manually ?
>>> 
>>> Find the latest intact /var/log/rpmpkgs* file (ie one that got generated 
>>> before the db got corrupted, file size should be a good indicator) and 
>>> copy it somewhere safe, say /root/rpmpkgs.backup. Now you should be able 
>>> to make fairly good recovery with something like:
>>> 
>>> # mv /var/lib/rpm /var/lib/rpm.busted
>>> # mkdir /var/tmp/download; cd /var/tmp/download
>>> # yumdownloader `sed -e "s/.rpm$//g" /root/rpmpkgs.backup`
>>> # rpm -Uvh --notriggers --noscripts --justdb *.rpm
>>> 
>>> The question of course is, what got the database corrupted to begin with.
>>> Did anything out of the ordinary happen at that time, like /var getting 
>>> full? Segfaults logged in /var/log/messages*? What filesystem is /var on?
>>> 
>> Hello Panu,
>> 
>> The larger rpmpkgs file is the following one:
>> rpmpkgs-20090111
>> from 2008-12-30
>> The following one is only 462 block compared to 61748
>> Concerning the message files, I attached the last one, I do not see 
>> anything bad, the CPU0 temperature is 34 °C, so I do not thing that it is
>> wrong. However the -12V and +12V are wrong according to gkrellM system 
>> monitor. But is it right, I doubt that the machine would work with 0.63 and 
>> 3.95 V instead.
>> Furthermore concerning the messages file, /messages-20090111 is empty
>> as well as the following one: messages-20090118
>> 
>> /var is ext3 (on /)
>> /usr, /usr/lib, /usr/local are lvm2
>> 
>> What do you thing ?
>
> Nothing out of ordinary there.. what does 'stat -f /var' say on these 
> problematic systems (as you said you have two systems with these problems)?

It gives:

   File: "/var"
     ID: 590562c6b464a80b Namelen: 255     Type: ext2/ext3
Block size: 1024       Fundamental block size: 1024
Blocks: Total: 3019460    Free: 1030413    Available: 876994
Inodes: Total: 384000     Free: 356630

>
> Noticed from the df output in another mail that the root partition was fairly 
> small so it might be subject to a more or less known issue of filesystem 
> blocksize of 1024 (at least on ext3) causing rpmdb corruption.
>
do you think that blocksize of 1024 is bad ?

Thank
-- 
---
==========================================================================
  Patrick DUPRÉ                      |   |
  Department of Chemistry            |   |    Phone: (44)-(0)-1904-434384
  The University of York             |   |    Fax:   (44)-(0)-1904-432516
  Heslington                         |   |
  York YO10 5DD  United Kingdom      |   |    email: pd520 at york.ac.uk
==========================================================================