F15: Erased rpm database!! What now?

[Dave Ihnat]

On Mon, Sep 26, 2011 at 09:08:35AM -0430, Robert Marcano wrote:
> It is not a single point of failure, your system works even with the rpm 
> database erased, you lose the ability to use rpm appropriately, that is 
> all.

That's a failure, at least in a production environment; if you can't apply
updates in a timely and 'appropriate' manner, you can't trust that system.

Fedora isn't (or shouldn't be) a production system, but RPM is used in
production systems.

> What do you propose?, to have a master slave database with another 
> server to store the RPM DB? two directories, that does not solves the 
> "ohh my god, I deleted /var, parent of both rpm databases"

I don't know what to propose; that's why I tossed this out.  It's not
only loss of the RPM database that would scrag a system--/etc/passwd &
/etc/group (the shadow copies wouldn't be enough), numerous other files
& directories would all drive a system to its knees.

Reinstallation is not really what anyone would call a production recovery.
For one thing, it brings a system "back" in a virgin state, with any
generated critical data lost.

Full backup recovery has also been, over the decades--and I've been
there--less than an optimal solution.  How often have I found that client
backups hadn't been running, or were corrupted?  Even if they're good, it's
a long and painful downtime.

Maybe a utility to which critical files/directories are identified that can
take "appropriate action".  Maybe appropriate action is a shadow archive on
a different drive, or NAS/SAN, or another computer, or even backup media.

Or maybe people shrug and say, "What we've been doing is good enough."  But
it should be a conscious decision, not a de facto one.

Cheers,
--
	Dave Ihnat
	dihnat at dminet.com