F13 -> f14 via preupgrade: my workaround

Rick Stevens ricks at nerd.com
Thu Nov 4 00:58:06 UTC 2010


On 11/03/2010 02:13 PM, Colin Brace wrote:
>
> Hi all,
>
> Earlier today I tried upgrading my F13 system to F14 with preupgrade, but
> ran into the dreaded "Unable to read package metadata... cannot retrieve
> repository metadata..." error, which I've repeatedly encountered with
> preupdgrade previously.
>
> I tried moving /var/cache/yum to a different drive with more space but that
> didn't work. Finally, I moved the entire /var directory from a separate
> partition to the root partition, changing fstab accordingly, rebooting, and
> then finally the upgrade proceeded as it should.
>
> Don't know what the deal is with preupgrade, but in terms of paths and
> partitions etc it is hardly bulletproof.

I believe preupgrade starts before any of the other partitions are 
mounted.  Thus if /var is on a separate partition than / you may run
into issues.

I've been bitten by this with using multipathd as well, as it wants to
write to /var/lib, but /var isn't mounted when multipathd starts.

There are several things that are a bit, well, stupid in those areas.
I can see not going to multiuser mode (run level >1), but to start up
before mounting the filesystems?  Sheesh!
----------------------------------------------------------------------
- Rick Stevens, Systems Engineer, C2 Hosting          ricks at nerd.com -
- AIM/Skype: therps2        ICQ: 22643734            Yahoo: origrps2 -
-                                                                    -
- Millihelen, adj: The amount of beauty required to launch one ship. -
----------------------------------------------------------------------


More information about the users mailing list