From Bugzilla Helper: User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.2) Gecko/20021126 Description of problem: When I try to remove a package that has some (or all) files on a partition that is mounted read-only, rpm doesn't complain but simply ignores these files. The package is then removed from the database. The only way to fully remove the package (except from deleting files by hand) is to (obviously) remount the partition read-write, reinstall the package (to get it into the database) and remove it again. Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): 4.0.4-7x How reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1. Install a package that has some files on a partition you can mount read-only. Say we use ltp-11.07.02-0.i386.rpm (the linux test project). It installs in /usr/local/ltp/... and /usr/share/..., so these would have to be on a partition that can be mounted read-only. Let's assume /usr is a separate partition. 2. mount /usr -o ro,remount 3. rpm -e ltp 4. ls /usr/local 5. rpm -q ltp Actual Results: After step 3.: after a second of two, the prompt returns. No output. After step 4.: all the files are there still (of course) After step 5.: it says "package ltp is not installed" Expected Results: After step 3.: it should have said "Hey, I can't remove these files!" After step 4.: (should still show all files) After step 5.: it should have said "ltp-11.07.02-0" Additional Information: This bug seems to be related to bug #74438.
Other than through %_netsharedpath, rpm has no support for RO mounts, ditto chattr files. No matter what, rpm cannot remove readonly files.
Maybe I wasn't quite clear -- I agree that rpm can't and shouldn't remove the files, but it should complain that something is wrong (as suggested in expected results, step 3). And I think it should let the package remain in the rpm database, because that makes it difficult to remove the files after remounting the partition read-write (as suggested in expected results, step 5).