rpm --initdb error: cannot open Packages index using db3
 

# rpm --initdb
error: cannot open Packages index using db3 - No such file or directory (2)

# rpm --rebuilddb
error: cannot open Packages index

How to fix this problem?

The first thing to do is to check what files exist in your rpm data base. Look in the /var/lib/rpm directory. You should have about 15 or 20 files in that directory, one of them named Packages.

---------------
Steve Stites

The old problem is solved but another problem appeared.
# make
...
error: cannot open Providename index using db3 - No such file or directory (2)
error: cannot open Name index using db3 - No such file or directory (2)
error: cannot open Basenames index using db3 - No such file or directory (2)
error: cannot open Conflictname index using db3 - No such file or directory (2)
error: failed build dependencies:
perl is needed by app_server-4.9.9-9
openssl-devel is needed by app_server-4.9.9-9
sharutils is needed by app_server-4.9.9-9
tcp_wrappers is needed by app_server-4.9.9-9
/bin/login is needed by app_server-4.9.9-9
glibc-devel is needed by app_server-4.9.9-9
pam is needed by app_server-4.9.9-9
make: *** [linux_rpm_server] Error 1

What was the solution?

-------------------
Steve Stites

mkdir /var/lib/rpm
rpm --initdb

What user do you build this package as (permissions)? Whats the command (no obfuscation please)? And what does 'rpm -q perl openssl-devel tcp_wrappers glibc-devel pam' return?

I login as root and build this package as root.

# rpm -q perl openssl-devel tcp_wrappers glibc-devel pam
error: cannot open Name index using db3 - No such file or directory (2)
package perl is not installed
package openssl-devel is not installed
package tcp_wrappers is not installed
package glibc-devel is not installed
package pam is not installed

However, perl is installed but rpm cannot see it.

First of all you shouldn't be building RPMs as root. It's not necessary, any unprivileged user account should do. Because of your "mkdir /var/lib/rpm; rpm --initdb" creating a new RPM database structure, the RPMDB is empty. Where on earth did you get those instructions from? Now if you have the /etc/cron\..*/rpm cronjob (the one that does "/bin/rpm -qa --qf '%{name}-%{version}-%{release}.%{arch}.rpm\n' 2>&1 | /bin/sort > /var/log/rpmpkgs"), then there is a possibility to kind of restore the RPMDB in a semi-automatic way. You need to download the installed packages (like with "yum --download-only") and then install them with 'rpm' using "--justdb --noscripts". This could require the use of "--force". I'd like to understand what lead to this. Can you tell us what commands you executed that caused this problem where you had to rebuild the RPMDB?

I got those (wrong) instructions from another newsgroup.
Please explain more about:
/etc/cron\..*/rpm cronjob (the one that does "/bin/rpm -qa --qf '%{name}-%{version}-%{release}.%{arch}.rpm\n' 2>&1 | /bin/sort > /var/log/rpmpkgs")

I am just one of the users using that computer, I do not know which commands caused this problem.

The default Fedora/RHEL/CentOS/.* /etc/cron.daily/rpm cronjob lists (command as shown) installed packages and dumps them in /var/log/rpmpkgs. Ergo, if you do not have a complete RPMDB but you have /var/log/rpmpkgs, then you can find most packages on your install CDs or download them from the official repos.