CentOS - Jan 2009 - Problems with RPM Database, usual techniques not working to recover DB

I have a CentOS 5.2 i386 Development server that has a rpm db problem that I
can't seem to solve.

I have followed all the advice on Daniel Berrange's page on rpm db recovery:

http://people.redhat.com/berrange/notes/rpmrecovery.html

With no results, all I get from "rpm -qa" is list of two public gpg
keys
that are listed in the file system root.

My question is where do I start to recover from this?  Do I reinstall rpm?
So far rpm refuses to do so (using any of the command line options and
combination of options), I could do it with a tar command from source rpm
file, or is that asking for more trouble?

Looking for feedback on ideas to recover this system, it had a nasty crash
with the install of new kernel that fixed the plusxen kernel problem in
early December and I'm trying to get it back on its feet again.

If you want the whole blow by blow account you can find it at this posting
in the CentOS forum:

http://www.centos.org/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=18006&forum=37

Thank You In Advance for any advice you may be able to give,

-------------
Brian Lynch

on 1-8-2009 3:55 PM Brian Lynch spake the following:
> I have a CentOS 5.2 i386 Development server that has a rpm db problem that
I
> can't seem to solve.
> 
> I have followed all the advice on Daniel Berrange's page on rpm db
recovery:
> 
> http://people.redhat.com/berrange/notes/rpmrecovery.html
> 
> With no results, all I get from "rpm -qa" is list of two public
gpg keys
> that are listed in the file system root.
> 
> My question is where do I start to recover from this?  Do I reinstall rpm?
> So far rpm refuses to do so (using any of the command line options and
> combination of options), I could do it with a tar command from source rpm
> file, or is that asking for more trouble?
> 
> Looking for feedback on ideas to recover this system, it had a nasty crash
> with the install of new kernel that fixed the plusxen kernel problem in
> early December and I'm trying to get it back on its feet again.
> 
> If you want the whole blow by blow account you can find it at this posting
> in the CentOS forum:
> 
>
http://www.centos.org/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=18006&forum=37
> 
> Thank You In Advance for any advice you may be able to give,
> 
> -------------
> Brian Lynch
Sometimes it just can't be fixed, and requires a full backup and re-install
to
fix some issues.
Not the help you wanted to hear, I'm sure, but for the time you have spent
trying to fix it, you might already be done with a re-install.
Otherwise you might try the last part of the forum post on a clean install on
another temporary system and copy that rpm package database back to the broken
machine.



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You hope everybody uses it, and
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