How to rebuild RPM database on a Red Hat Enterprise Linux system?

Solution Verified - Updated -

Issue

  • rpm or yum commands fail

  • Common Errors:

    • cannot open Packages database in /var/lib/rpm
    • unexpected file type or format
    • damaged header instance
    • rpmdb: Lock table is out of available locker entries
    • rpm -qa shows nothing or hangs

  • Attempted to do an rpm -q on a couple of packages and got errors like this:

    rpmdb: /var/lib/rpm/Packages: unexpected file type or format  
error: cannot open Packages index using db3 - Invalid argument (22)

  • On doing rpm query or install, it is failing with following error:

    error: rpmdbNextIterator: skipping h#    1601 Header V4 RSA/SHA1 signature: BAD, key ID 2874ffbe

Environment

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