How to recover rpm database using /var/log/rpmpkgs?

Solution Verified - Updated -

Environment

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 4
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 5
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 6

Issue

  • How to recover rpm database from scratch from file /var/lib/rpm/Packages?
  • How to rebuild rpm database using the /var/log/rpmpkgs file?
  • Completed steps to rebuild rpm database as mentioned in How to rebuild RPM database on a Red Hat Enterprise Linux system? without any error message, but rpm database is not rebuilt and does not list all packages installed. How to rebuild rpm database?

Resolution

Note: In Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6, the daily cron file to create /var/log/rpmpkgs is provided by the rpm-cron package, available in the optional repository, not the main 'rpm' package. So, if you do not install the package, /var/log/rpmpkgs is not available on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.

Note: Even if /var/log/rpmpkgs is not available, the yumdb info command can output the installed package list (only for packages installed with yum). If no packages were installed with rpm, then a list of installed packages like /var/log/rpmpkgs can therefore be created from the output of 'yumdb info'.

  • Create the work directory:
# mkdir /var/tmp/recoverdb

  • Download all the necessary rpm files into the work directory:

    • For Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 systems:

      # cat /var/log/rpmpkgs | sed 's,\.[^.]\+\.rpm$,,g' | while read nvr
    do
      up2date --tmpdir=/var/tmp/recoverdb --get $nvr
    done

    • For Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 & 6 systems:

      • Confirm yum-utils package is installed on system.

        # yum install yum-utils

      • If this installation fails, download the package and install it manually:

        # rpm -Uvh --nodeps --force yum-utils*.rpm

      • Once yum-utils is installed, download all required packages.

        # cat /var/log/rpmpkgs | sed 's,\.[^.]\+\.rpm$,,g' | while read nvr
    do
      yumdownloader --destdir=/var/tmp/recoverdb $nvr
    done

  • Rebuild the rpm database:

# cd /var/tmp/recoverdb
# ls *.rpm > MANIFEST
# rpm -Uvh --noscripts --notriggers --force --justdb MANIFEST

  • Run yum / up2date to ensure the filesystem and the rpmdb are in sync.

    • For Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 systems

      # up2date -uf

    • For Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 & 6 systems

      # yum update

  • In the event of an error such as:

# rpm -Uvh --noscripts --notriggers --force --justdb MANIFEST
error: Failed dependencies:
        glibc-common = 2.3.4-2.57 is needed by (installed) glibc-2.3.4-2.57.i686
        glibc-headers = 2.3.4-2.57 is needed by (installed) glibc-devel-2.3.4-2.57.i386

Download the missing rpms and place them in the directory.

Comment

Diagnostic Steps

  • If following packages are not present in the rpm database, then up2date will not work. Download and install them manually on the system
    basesystem, glibc, bash, mktemp, setup, redhat-release

e.g.,:

basesystem-8.0-4.noarch.rpm 
glibc-2.3.4-2.36.i686.rpm
bash-3.0-19.3.i386.rpm
mktemp-1.5-20.i386.rpm
setup-2.5.37-1.7.noarch.rpm
redhat-release-4AS-9.i386.rpm

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