[rhn-users] Re: Up2date Problem

[Dag Wieers]

On Tue, 25 Jul 2006, Terry Turner wrote:

> > Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2006 10:54:30 -0500
> > From: "Mark R. Ballard" <mark.ballard at murraystate.edu>
> > Subject: [rhn-users] Up2date Problem
> > To: <rhn-users at redhat.com>
> > Message-ID: <01e901c6b002$9e612e70$b49ff9d8 at msunet2k.edu>
> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
> >
> > I'm fairly new to being a Linux administrator so please forgive how green I
> > am, but here's my problem.
> > I ran up2date (as root) on one of my servers yesterday that aborted during
> > the installation step and I don't think everything that got downloaded was
> > installed.
> > I got the following error:
> >
> >     127:pvm                    ###########################################
> > [100%]
> >     error: unpacking of archive failed on file
> > /usr/share/pvm3/bin/LINUXI386: cpio: rename
> >     Error on option --makefile-uninstall-rule: unknown option.
> >     Run 'gconftool-2 --help' to see a full list of available command line
> > options.
> >     error reading information on service keytable: No such file or directory
> >     error: %trigger(kbd-1.08-10.2) scriptlet failed, exit status 1
> >     Shutting down NFS mountd: [FAILED]
> >     Shutting down NFS daemon: [FAILED]
> >     Shutting down NFS quotas: [FAILED]
> >     Shutting down NFS services:  [  OK  ]
> >     Stopping NFS statd: [  OK  ]
> >     groupdel: group rpm does not exist
> >     There was a fatal RPM install error. The message was:
> >     There was a rpm unpack error installing the package: pvm-3.4.5-6_EL3
> >
> > I then ran up2date again and it installed a few more packages and said I was
> > up2date, but it never attempted to reinstall pvm-3.4.5-6_EL3.  I still have
> > a ton of rpm and hdr files
> > in /var/spool/up2date.  Does up2date remove those files once they are
> > installed?
> >
> > Also, my up2date problem seems to have removed several services (i.e., sshd,
> > crond, kudzu, nfs, nfslock, etc.) from the appropriate run levels (rc0.d -
> > rc6.d).
> >
> > Any help would be greatly appreciated.
> 
> There is a known bug related to the pvm package...
> 
>   http://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=191841

Actually this is a longtime bug in rpm (at least since 1997 if memory 
serves me right). When extracting the cpio archive rpm, it might fail, rpm 
will bail out and in this case up2date doesn't handle the condition with 
all kind of unexpected results.

There are many reasons why cpio cannot extract, like extracting a file 
with the same name as an existing directory (or even used mount-point) or 
in this case the Inappropriate ioctl for device. In all of these cases rpm 
does not check in advance, or does not handle the unexpected behaviour 
leaving you with an inconsistent rpm database (old and new package 
installed at the same time and inconsistency between files installed and 
files in rpmdb).

Kind regards,
--   dag wieers,  dag at wieers.com,  http://dag.wieers.com/   --
[all I want is a warm bed and a kind word and unlimited power]