Bug 789

Summary: Flaw in install program prohibits most FTP installs
Product: [Retired] Red Hat Linux Reporter: mobrien
Component: installerAssignee: Matt Wilson <msw>
Status: CLOSED CURRENTRELEASE QA Contact:
Severity: medium Docs Contact:
Priority: medium    
Version: 5.2   
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Hardware: All   
OS: Linux   
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Fixed In Version: Doc Type: Bug Fix
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Clone Of: Environment:
Last Closed: 1999-01-12 17:17:40 UTC Type: ---
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oVirt Team: --- RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
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Description mobrien 1999-01-12 07:25:06 UTC 
The redhat install program has a problem which makes it very
difficult to do FTP installs.  The install sequence is

partition disks
download some files from the FTP site
CHOOSE PACKAGES
FORMAT PARTITIONS
download RPMS

The two steps shown in all-caps together take so much time
that FTP servers will disconnect the computer due to lack of
activity!  One cannot simply bypass the format step because
the install program builds a broken RPM database on the
partition, which causes install to crash on a second install
attempt when it tries to write the RPMs to disk in the last
step.

A workaround is to format two partitions in a first run of
install, with the smaller one assigned to the / mound point.
 This partition gets a corrupted RPM database when install
crashes.  The second formatted partition can be used at the
/ mount point in a second install attempt.  It has no broken
RPM database.  Since the user doesn't have to format the
partition, the FTP server doesn't disconnect the computer
due to inactivity.

This flaw should be very easy to fix.
Comment 1 Jay Turner 1999-01-12 17:01:59 UTC 
This has been verified and will hopefully be fixed in the next release
of Red Hat.
Comment 2 Matt Wilson 1999-01-12 17:17:59 UTC 
*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 583 ***