yum/rpm hosed me yesterday

[Rick Stevens]

Chuck Campbell wrote:
> On Thu, May 06, 2004 at 01:07:52PM -0700, Rick Stevens wrote:
> 
>>Chuck Campbell wrote:
>>
>>>I installed yum on my rh9 box, and it looked like it was working.
>>>
>>>At least yum check-updates showed a lot of packages for me to update.
>>>
>>>I saw that rpm was on the list, so I did yum update rpm*
>>>
>>>It went through all of its steps without errors, and I thought "this is
>>>the best thing since sliced bread"
>>>
>>>I did rpm -qa | grep rpm to verify the current version and I get this:
>>>rpmdb: unable to join the environment
>>>error: db4 error(11) from dbenv->open: Resource temporarily unavailable
>>>error: cannot open Packages index using db3 - Resource temporarily 
>>>unavailable (11)
>>>error: cannot open Packages database in /var/lib/rpm
>>>
>>>
>>>Now it appears I'm stuffed.  What do I do next?
>>
>>I got your message directed at me personally, Chuck, and I responded.
>>For the sake of the others on the list, here's what I said:
>>
>>It wasn't yum, it's RPM and its ongoing flubup with the database system.
>>
>>Go into /var/lib/rpm and delete the __db.001 __db.002 and __db.003
>>(those start with two underscores).  Then, as root:
>>
>>    rpm --rebuilddb
>>
>>and wait a while.  That should fix it.  A script to do it is:
>>
>>--------------------------- CUT HERE ---------------------------------
>>#!/bin/bash
>>echo -n Cleaning up corrupted databases...
>>rm -f /var/lib/rpm/__db*
>>echo Done
>>echo
>>echo -n Rebuilding databases...
>>rpm --rebuilddb
>>echo Done
>>echo
>>echo RPM databases rebuilt
>>--------------------------- CUT HERE ---------------------------------
>>
>>This has been an ongoing issue with rpm and the db3/db4 packages.  I
>>don't know if they'll ever sort it out.  If you ever get those kinds of
>>messages in the future, that's the fix.
> 
> 
> Great, this worked fine.  I'm back in business.

Glad to hear it.  rpm is a funny ol' thing.
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- Rick Stevens, Senior Systems Engineer     rstevens at vitalstream.com -
- VitalStream, Inc.                       http://www.vitalstream.com -
-                                                                    -
-         Okay, who put a "stop payment" on my reality check?        -
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