[Gllug] Recovering a RH6.2 system with a corrupt RPM database

[John Winters]

On Wed, 2002-12-04 at 09:33, Xander D Harkness wrote:
> John Winters wrote:
> > One of my customers has a RH 6.2 system on which the RPM database has
> > become corrupted.  Each time any reference to the ppp package is
> > made using the rpm tool, the tool crashes with a segmentation fault.
> > 
> > That is, if you do an "rpm -qa" you get a listing up to and including
> > the ppp package, then rpm crashes.  If you do a query on a package
> > alphabetically before the ppp one it works.  If you do a query on one
> > alphabetically after it crashes.
> > 
> > An "rpm --rebuilddb" also crashes with a segmentation fault.
> > 
> > Is there any way of recovering the system without re-installing?  It's
> > working fine apart from the corrupt rpm database.
> > 
> > TIA,
> > John
> > 
> > P.S.  The system is patched pretty much up to date, including the the
> > RPM 4 update.
> > 
> I had similar problems with a redhat 7.1 machine.  I luckily had another 
> machine with a sort of similar set up.  I copied /var/lib/rpm from one 
> to the other and all worked well.  Any chance that you have a similar 
> machine?

Yes, I can have.  Did you get long term problems with packages being out
of step?  (That is, the RPM database thinks a package is installed but
it isn't, or vice versa.)

Presumably one can use --force to force the system to install a package
it thinks is already installed.

Does the /var/lib/rpm directory contain *all* the files which rpm
updates?  In other words, if I save the existing directory and contents
and then start experimenting with a new one, is there any danger of me
not being able to get back to the start position?

John

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