yum and "rpm -U" not working

[Marti, Robert]

-----Original Message-----
From: redhat-list-bounces at redhat.com [mailto:redhat-list-bounces at redhat.com] On Behalf Of Margaret Doll
Sent: Thursday, January 21, 2010 12:30 PM
To: General Red Hat Linux discussion list
Subject: Re: yum and "rpm -U" not working


On Jan 21, 2010, at 1:03 PM, m.roth at 5-cent.us wrote:

>>
>> On Jan 21, 2010, at 11:01 AM, m.roth at 5-cent.us wrote:
>>
>>> Margaret wrote:
>>>>> From: Margaret Doll <Margaret_Doll at brown.edu>
>>>>> Date: January 21, 2010 10:25:47 AM EST
>>>>>
>>>>> We are running 2.6.18-128.1.6.el5xen on our server.
>>>>>
>>>>> Recently "yum update", "yum localinstall TIV*.rpm --nogpgcheck",
>>>>> and versions of "rpm -U xterm" hang.  yum hangs up on the  
>>>>> transition
>>>>> check after all the packages have been downloaded.  "rpm -U" tells
>>>>> me which dependencies that I need, but hangs if I include the
>>>>> dependencies in the list of programs to upgrade.
>>>>>
>>>>> "rpm --rebuildbd" seems to work.
>>>>>
>>>>> How do I start debugging this problem?
>>>
>>> Is there any clue in /var/log/yum.log?
> <snip>
>> The kernel on which the system is running is xen, but the problem  
>> with
>> rpm and yum still exists.
>
> Ok, so is there anything in the yum.log, from when it failed? Have you
> tried rpm -Uvh xterm, to see if it said anything? Oh - and try rpm - 
> Uvvh -
> I thought I remembered this, and yep, the man page sayeth "Print  
> lots of
> ugly debugging information".
>
> Let us know what happens if you try that.
>
>         mark

Thanks, Mark and Gabi,

	rpm -Uvvh xterm*rpm

ends with

D: opening  db index       /var/lib/rpm/Packages create mode=0x42
D: mounted filesystems:
D:     i        dev    bsize       bavail       iavail mount point

We are also having problems with df working completely.  df also hangs  
after reporting most of the volumes that are mounted.   We thought the  
problems were unrelated.  Perhaps a reboot will help.


-----------------------------------------------------------
Is /var/ one of the mount points is doesn't return?  I would look at disk issues if that's the case.  A reboot may cause more damage than it would fix if you have something really screwed up.

Rob Marti