Red Hat Bugzilla – Bug 220735
rpm seqfault in rescue image in VMware
Last modified: 2007-11-30 17:11:52 EST
Description of problem: Rpm seqfaults in rescue image in VMware. How reproducible: always Steps to Reproduce: Installed FC6 in VMware beta 6 running on Windows XP and ran yum update. Booted from rescue image, let rescue mount FC6 on /mnt/sysimage Issued command rpm -qa --root /mnt/sysimage Actual results: rpm segmentation faults or hangs Expected results: package list output. Additional info: Unable to reproduce using rescue image on a real P4 system with FC6 installed. Unable to find any kind of rpm problems in VMware image after FC6 is booted. I recall there were some vmware related problems but do not remember details. However since rpm is working fine in VMware during installation and after system is installed I don't see the reason why rpm shouldn't work in rescue image unless something is broken in image or rpm.
rpm runs under VMware, there's nothing wrto segfaults running FC6 under VMware. The issue is likely the instabilities introduced by yum reopening an rpmdb thousands of times per transaction, see many many other bugs against rpm in FC6.
Before submitting this I read all FC6 related rpm bugs, there are many segfault reports but all of them are in OS environment and not in rescue. Let me repeat: I can run rpm install and query commands, yum updates and erases in VMware without any issues whatsoever. However no rpm command work if rescue image booted in the same VMware environment. My impression was that rescue image environment (e.g. kernel, libc, etc.) is the same as real OS. Isn't it?
What are the symptoms of "no rpm command works" with rescue mode in VMware? Do rm -f /var/lib/rpm/__db* to get rid of any stale locks or corrupted caches first. Try running with -vv and attach the output of any failed command here. NEEDINFO
IIRC the kernel in FC6 the installer/rescue image is bugged with the kernel mmap() corruption issue. Not much that can be done about the released isos... The fact that you're not seeing it on installed systems doesn't necessarily mean that much, took a while before I was able to reproduce the mmap() bug on any of my systems back then. And once updates have been installed the issue will be gone again, but no updates in rescue-mode. If F7 rescue image fails similarly within VMware, then it's likely to be something else instead (in which case feel free to reopen against devel).