Should RPM check its database?

[Tony Nelson]

Should RPM check its database periodically?  (Currently I don't believe it
does.)  It would be helpful if, say, there were a daily cron task that
syslog'ed and / or emailed root if there were a problem with the RPM
database.  The check appears to be pretty fast.  The following takes well
under a minute on my old machine:

    []# cd /var/lib/rpm ; for name in * ; do echo $name ; /usr/lib/rpm/rpmdb_verify $name ; done

Note that this appears to only check the individual files' integrity, and
not for referential integrity.

It may be necessary to lock the database before checking it; if so,
whatever in RPM that is supposed to run rpmdb_verify probably already does
so.  (I didn't see anything in man rpm about this, only about verifying
packages.)

While I'm at it, should Anaconda check the RPM database before doing an
upgrade, and offer to repair the database if there is a problem and the
Packages file is OK?

Should the Installation Guide suggest checking the RPM database before
upgrading?

I'll decide what to RFE in Bugzilla based partly on feedback here.
-- 
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