Trouble installing packages using rpm on Mandrake 10.0
 

I'm trying to install a rpm package on a Mandrake 10.0 install. In the past I've been able to do this both at the command line and using webmin. When I try to install the package, the command locks up. It appears to be running as I can see the service in the process list but nothing ever happens. If I cntl-c out of the process, the instance is left running and I have to manually kill it. Resource utilization on the server is light, with only a few percent of the CPU utilized. After killing it a couple of times, I tried to run rpm -qa and grep the package name to see if maybe I had a busted install but that just hangs as well with nothing returned. Other commands that are resource intensive run without any problems on the box. The particulars of the install as obtained by uname -a are as follows:

Linux MIS1235.bcbsal.org 2.6.3-7mdk-p3-smp-64GB #1 SMP Wed Mar 17 15:34:39 CET 2004 i686 unknown unknown GNU/Linux

Has anyone seen anything like this before? It looks like rpm may be busted but I have no way to confirm this. My syslog shows no errors.

"It looks like rpm may be busted but I have no way to confirm this."

One possibility is that one of your early unsuccessful installs left a rpm lock file in place. Look in your rpm data base for a lock file. If you find one then delete it. In SuSE the rpm data base is /var/lib/rpm. Look for the Mandrake rpm data base and if it is in the same place as SuSE you would find a rpm lock file with:

find /var/lib/rpm -iname "*lock*"

Another possibility is that one of your early unsuccessful installs left the rpm data base corrupted. You could try to rebuild the data base:

rpm --rebuilddb

A third possibility is that you may have partially installed the package multiple times. Try uninstalling the package over and over until you get the rpm error message that you are trying to uninstall a package that is not installed.

rpm -e packagename

See:
man rpm

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Steve Stites

Steve,

Thanks for the advice. I did have a lock and once I cleared it I was able to query the database again. I have an rpm process that won't respond to kill -9 from one of the botched installs so I'm starting to think I'm going to have to reboot it to clear whatever it is that's botched up. I tried the rpm database rebuild as well and the uninstalls but it apparently never made it that far. Hopefully a reboot will get this mug moving in the right direction. Thanks again.