[CentOS] Problems with RPM Database, usual techniques not working to recover DB

Brian Lynch
Thu, 08 Jan 2009 23:55:56 -0000

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