Bug 682492

Summary:	rpm appears to be unable to determine OS version when --root is specified
Product:	[Fedora] Fedora	Reporter:	sgovindachar
Component:	rpm	Assignee:	Panu Matilainen <pmatilai>
Status:	CLOSED NOTABUG	QA Contact:	Fedora Extras Quality Assurance <extras-qa>
Severity:	unspecified	Docs Contact:
Priority:	unspecified
Version:	14	CC:	ffesti, jnovy, pmatilai
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Hardware:	Unspecified
OS:	Unspecified
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Fixed In Version:		Doc Type:	Bug Fix
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Clone Of:		Environment:
Last Closed:	2011-03-06 07:27:31 UTC	Type:	---
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Documentation:	---	CRM:
Verified Versions:		Category:	---
oVirt Team:	---	RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
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Description sgovindachar 2011-03-06 02:46:14 UTC

Description of problem:

rpm appears to be unable to determine OS version when --root is specified

Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):

RPM version 4.8.1

How reproducible:

rpm --root=/media/OS/home/foo -ivh   http://download1.rpmfusion.org/free/fedora/rpmfusion-free-release-stable.noarch.rpm


Steps to Reproduce:

1.  cd /media/OS
2.  mkdir foo
3.  Now just issue the command given above
  
Actual results:

Retrieving http://download1.rpmfusion.org/free/fedora/rpmfusion-free-release-stable.noarch.rpm
warning: /media/OS/home/foo/var/tmp/rpm-tmp.fVTw4y: Header V3 RSA/SHA256 Signature, key ID 16ca1a56: NOKEY
error: Failed dependencies:
	/bin/sh is needed by rpmfusion-free-release-12-3.noarch
	system-release >= 12 is needed by rpmfusion-free-release-12-3.noarch

Expected results:

Since `uname -a` shows:  

Linux localhost.localdomain 2.6.35.6-45.fc14.x86_64 #1 SMP Mon Oct 18 23:57:44 UTC 2010 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

we are on Fedora 14, and 14 is >= 12 -- so either 

(A) rpm command should PASS or 

(B) failure message should say exactly what is wrong.

Additional info:

Above command results in PASS/SUCCESS when "--root=<value>" is _not_ used.

Comment 1 Panu Matilainen 2011-03-06 07:27:31 UTC

I wonder what are you expecting --root to do? This is exactly how its supposed to work: --root specifies that rpm should operate in an alternate system root, including a different rpmdb, as opposed to working on the "running system" whose root is /. This is used for example during initial installation in anaconda and creation of chroot'able environments (used by eg mock).

Comment 2 sgovindachar 2011-03-06 15:19:53 UTC

Sorry;  And thanks for the clarification.  I though --root was specifying a different location in which rpm would create its database.  For context, I am contemplating a move from Windows to Fedora, and am trying F14 on a Live USB stick;  the USB stick does not have much room (just 1G), but /media/OS has lots of room;  the sound was not good, and I wanted to see if VLC would output better sound.  (I point yum's --installroot to a directory in /media/OS/.)