Fixing yum incomplete transactions

Fran Garcia — Sat, 18 Nov 2017 00:12:18 GMT

I just found an issue with a server that wouldn't let me install any additional software with yum because it complained of an incomplete transaction. Plus checking the list of installed RPMs with rpm -qa showed that many of them where duplicated (old and new versions at the same time).

I used the following commands to get out that mess, and worked beautifully :

package-cleanup --dupes | grep -v Loaded | grep x86_64 | awk 'NR % 2 == 0' | xargs -n1 rpm -e --nodeps --justdb --noscripts
package-cleanup --dupes | grep -v Loaded | grep i686   | awk 'NR % 2 == 0' | xargs -n1 rpm -e --nodeps --justdb --noscripts
package-cleanup --dupes | grep -v Loaded | grep noarch | awk 'NR % 2 == 0' | xargs -n1 rpm -e --nodeps --justdb --noscripts
yum update
yum-complete-transaction
yum -y reinstall kernel

The first command is the meaty part; get a list of duplicate RPMs and, with the awk command get one out of two lines. Then pipe that list to rpm so we can mark the RPM as removed without running their removal scripts, or actually removing the files from disk !

After that, running yum update will take care of ensuring we didn't remove any dependency and finally yum-complete-transaction will replay the last failed command.

The last command is optional but apparently is a common problem to end up with a borked kernel and/or initrd, so reinstalling it for good measure.

As a sample of what yum and yum-complete-transaction where complaining about, here's a small excerpt of what was going on at the time of the issue:

--> Restarting Dependency Resolution with new changes. 
--> Running transaction check 
--> Finished Dependency Resolution 
Error: Trying to remove "systemd", which is protected 
Error: Trying to remove "yum", which is protected  
 You could try using --skip-broken to work around the problem   
** Found 43 pre-existing rpmdb problem(s), 'yum check' output follows: 
audit-libs-2.7.6-3.el7.i686 is a duplicate with audit-libs-2.6.5-3.el7.x86_64   
32:bind-license-9.9.4-50.el7.noarch is a duplicate with 32:bind-license-9.9.4-37.el7.noarch
7:device-mapper-1.02.140-8.el7.x86_64 is a duplicate with 7:device-mapper-1.02.135-1.el7.x86_64
7:device-mapper-libs-1.02.140-8.el7.x86_64 is a duplicate with 7:device-mapper-libs-1.02.135-1.el7.x86_64  
dracut-033-502.el7.x86_64 is a duplicate with dracut-033-463.el7.x86_64
e2fsprogs-libs-1.42.9-10.el7.x86_64 is a duplicate with e2fsprogs-libs-1.42.9-9.el7.x86_64  
fipscheck-lib-1.4.1-6.el7.x86_64 is a duplicate with fipscheck-lib-1.4.1-5.el7.x86_64  
glib2-2.50.3-3.el7.x86_64 is a duplicate with glib2-2.46.2-4.el7.x86_64
glibc-2.17-196.el7.i686 is a duplicate with glibc-2.17-157.el7.x86_64  
glibc-common-2.17-196.el7.x86_64 is a duplicate with glibc-common-2.17-157.el7.x86_64  
gobject-introspection-1.50.0-1.el7.x86_64 is a duplicate with gobject-introspection-1.42.0-1.el7.x86_64
kbd-misc-1.15.5-13.el7.noarch is a duplicate with kbd-misc-1.15.5-12.el7.noarch
kernel-tools-libs-3.10.0-693.el7.x86_64 is a duplicate with kernel-tools-libs-3.10.0-514.el7.x86_64
krb5-libs-1.15.1-8.el7.x86_64 is a duplicate with krb5-libs-1.14.1-26.el7.x86_64   
libblkid-2.23.2-43.el7.x86_64 is a duplicate with libblkid-2.23.2-33.el7.x86_64
libcap-2.22-9.el7.i686 is a duplicate with libcap-2.22-8.el7.x86_64
libcom_err-1.42.9-10.el7.x86_64 is a duplicate with libcom_err-1.42.9-9.el7.x86_64  
libcurl-7.29.0-42.el7.x86_64 is a duplicate with libcurl-7.29.0-35.el7.x86_64  
libdb-5.3.21-20.el7.i686 is a duplicate with libdb-5.3.21-19.el7.x86_64
libgcc-4.8.5-16.el7.i686 is a duplicate with libgcc-4.8.5-11.el7.x86_64

Happy hacking!

Empaquetar software en formato RPM

Fran Garcia — Sat, 14 Jul 2012 16:11:00 GMT

RPM es un formato de paquete usado por Redhat, Fedora, Mandriva y otras distribuciones para distribuir software. Permite declarar versiones, dependencias de unos paquetes con otros, etc.

En este artículo vamos a ver como empaquetar el software dconf de Dag Wieers en formato RPM para que sea posible instalarlo de forma sencilla y homogénea. He elegido este paquete al ser un software que tiene
pocas dependencias y no es necesario compilar código (es un script Python).

ATENCIÓN: este paquete sólo se debe instalar en RedHat Enterprise Linux 5 ó 6. En versiones recientes de Fedora (p.e.: 17) ya existe un paquete llamado dconf que NO es este. Deberemos cambiar el nombre de nuestro paquete para no conflictar con el que ya provee la distribución.

Lo primero de todo, será bajar el paquete desde su fuente. En este caso, desde un repositorio git albergado en GitHub:

dconf@rhel6 : ~ $ sudo yum install -y git

dconf@rhel6 : ~ $ git clone https://github.com/dagwieers/dconf.git  
Initialized empty Git repository in /home/dconf/dconf/.git/  
remote: Counting objects: 291, done.  
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (105/105), done.  
remote: Total 291 (delta 192), reused 282 (delta 183)  
Receiving objects: 100% (291/291), 97.16 KiB, done.   
Resolving deltas: 100% (192/192), done.

dconf@rhel6 : ~ $ ls -l  
total 4  
drwxr-xr-x. 7 dconf dconf 4096 Jul 14 17:31 dconf

Una vez realizado esto, deberemos bajar las herramientas de RPM para crear paquetes, así como inicializar una serie de directorios que nos servirán para futuras construcciones de paquetes:

dconf@rhel6 : ~ $ sudo yum install -y rpm-build  
dconf@rhel6 : ~ $ mkdir -p ~/rpmbuild/{BUILD,RPMS,SOURCES,SRPMS,SPECS,TMP}  
dconf@rhel6 : ~ $ mkdir -p ~/rpmbuild/RPMS/{x86_64,i386,i586,i686,noarch}

rpmbuild espera encontrar un fichero ".spec" (especificaciones) de cómo construir el paquete. Típicamente se almacenan en ~/rpmbuild/SPECS . Además, según el fichero que proporciona el mantenedor de dstat espera encontrar el código en un directorio llamado "dconf-${version}", y no en "dconf" a secas generado por Git. Para solventar esto :

dconf@rhel6 : ~ $ mv ~/dconf/dconf.spec ~/rpmbuild/SPECS/  
dconf@rhel6 : ~ $ mv dconf dconf-0.6svn  
dconf@rhel6 : ~ $ tar -cjf /home/dconf/rpmbuild/SOURCES/dconf-0.6svn.tar.bz2 dconf  
dconf@rhel6 : ~ $ rpmbuild -bb rpmbuild/SPECS/dconf.spec  
[...]

¡Ya tenemos nuestro RPM generado! Ahora solo nos falta instalarlo y probarlo :

dconf@rhel6 : ~ $ ls -l rpmbuild/RPMS/noarch/  
total 44  
-rw-rw-r--. 1 dconf dconf 43118 Jul 14 17:43 dconf-0.6svn-1.noarch.rpm
dconf@rhel6 : ~ $ sudo rpm -i rpmbuild/RPMS/noarch/dconf-0.6svn-1.noarch.rpm
dconf@rhel6 : ~ $ sudo dconf -o dconf.txt -v  
Reading config file /etc/dconf.conf  
Reading config file /etc/dconf.d/redhat.conf  
Building file: dconf.txt

Finalmente, un poco de información sobre el RPM . Todos estos datos son modificables mediante el fichero .spec original.

dconf@rhel6 : ~ $ rpm -qi dconf  
Name : dconf Relocations: (not relocatable)  
Version : 0.6svn Vendor: (none)  
Release : 1 Build date: Sat 14 Jul 2012 05:43:09 PM CEST  
Install date: Sat 14 Jul 2012 05:44:22 PM CEST Build Host: rhel6  
Group : System Environment/Base Source RPM: dconf-0.6svn-1.src.rpm  
Size : 128551 License: GPL  
Signature : (none)  
URL : http://dag.wieers.com/home-made/dconf/  
Summary : Create a system's hardware and software configuration snapshot  
Description :  
Dconf is a tool to collect a system's hardware and software configuration.  
It allows to take your system configuration with you on the road, compare  
identical systems (like nodes in a cluster) to troubleshoot HW or SW  
problems.

Dconf is also useful in projects where you have to manage changes as a  
team. Dconf can send out system changes to a list of email addressesso  
that they can be revised and discussed in group.

You can customize your dconf configuration for specific needs, likemaking  
a profile of your laptop's hardware or copy specific software configuration  
files to send out or compare with other systems.

Hay un excelente documento con más detalle sobre las distintas posibilidades de rpmbuild en el sitio Linux Para Todos.

FranGarcia.me (Posts about rpm)

Fixing yum incomplete transactions

Empaquetar software en formato RPM