YUM update error; nss bug

[DonX]

Hello,

Like some other threads made, I too am experiencing problems with the nss bug that messed up YUM. I contacted my hosting company and it appears they 'fixed' it.

I looked at the 'history' for the commands they used and it looks like they basically did what was mentioned in this thread: viewtopic.php?f=13&t=50624 (I am experiencing the exact problem as that user in the thread. I wish I would of found that thread before contacting them)

Anyhow, I also see they did a series of other modifications as well for the server. They contacted me back saying the problem was "fixed", however one of the edits they did was to the yum.conf file as well. They added this to it:

Code: Select all

exclude=bind-chroot courier* dovecot* exim* filesystem httpd* mod_ssl* mydns* mysql* nsd* php* proftpd* pure-ftpd* ruby* spamassassin* squirrelmail*

Why would they add that to exclude those important updates which are necessary to be updated when updates are available? I got a response from them about this not to long ago and they said:

This is to inform you that webmin handles its own installation of services through the rpm.versions system, so we need to exclude a number of packages .

I'm not sure if this is normal or okay but prior to this nss bug, this edit to the yum.conf file wasn't necessary. Does anyone have any insight on this? Thank you.

[gerald_clark]

That is why we don't support systems with webmin/cPanel/plesk installed.
They hack CentOS, replace core components, and then replace system management/updating with their own system.
All support needs to be done through their channels.

[TrevorH]

I don't believe that webmin does that. That looks like the standard cpanel exclude list.

[DonX]

Hello,

No I do not think webmin is suppose to be like that. Prior to this nss bug, yum.conf never had that. The system is running virtualmin/webmin.

[gerald_clark]

I saw the excludes, thought cPanel, saw webmen, but it registered as WHM

Are you sure it is webmin and not WHM?

[DonX]

Are you sure it is webmin and not WHM?

Yes, webmin.

[DonX]

Can anyone suggest/advise what actions I should take? Should I remove the excludes from yum.conf?

I am not able to see any updates on the system either; meaning when I go into the package update manager in webmin, I see no packages installed even though packages are installed. Prior to the bug, I use to be able to search, view, etc, packages from the 'software package updates ' module.

[DonX]

Update:

After 2 days basically, my server host finally fixed everything it seems thus far. As mentioned by TrevorH in this thread: viewtopic.php?f=13&t=50644 - for anyone who experiences this problem, DO NOT run rpm rebuilddb command. This makes things worse and that is what I did when I first experienced this problem.

There is a link posted at the thread mentioned above on how to correct this problem(second post). By following the instructions there, you should be able to correct this problem easily, but if you ran the rpm rebuildb, you will have to do more things to correct the problem now.

Hopefully in the future something like this doesn't occur again where thinking updating your system is good thing (which it is) and it turned out to a bad thing this time around. IT happens I guess.

[DonX]

After finally getting everything fixed because of the nss bug update, all seems fine now so far but when I look at the installed packages on my server, not all of them show up and I know they are there because for instance, httpd and php are installed because my site is working.

I thought it was because of the recent edit/addition to the yum.conf file by my server host:

exclude=bind-chroot courier* dovecot* exim* filesystem httpd* mod_ssl* mydns* mysql* nsd* php* proftpd* pure-ftpd* ruby* spamassassin* squirrelmail*

but I commented that out and when doing yum search php or anything in the exclude above, it appears when searching( if commented, nothing appears if searching one of the above) but still does not appear when I look at the installed packages via yum list installed. I was thinking by having that commented out and doing yum list installed, the above packages in the exclude list above would appear for the system but they do not. So how is it possible for this to be when for example php and httpd have to be installed on the server because my website is working?

Thanks.

[edit/avij: moved this message from its own separate topic to this topic]

edit: Apologies for the double post. Thanks for moving the thread to this one.

[TrevorH]

Sounds to me like your hoster "fixed" the rpm database by copying one from another machine but that one didn't have all the packages installed that you did before.