[Yum] Warning: don't let yum update update yum

[Cliff Kent]

Whatever I can do to help.

 >> I think you should look at if anything is manhandling your rpmdb. <<

Please be more specific. All I know about rpmdb is how to backup the old 
directory and run rpm --rebuild when rpm starts to act up.

Looking at /root/.bash_history I see these manual runs of rpm:

rpm -ivh FileRunner-2.5.1-1.i386.rpm
rpm -ivh Kernel-Win4Lin3-Fedora1.0_2.4.22.12115-01.i586.rpm
rpm -e Win4Lin
rpm -ivh Win4Lin-5.5.11a-d.i386.rpm
rpm -Uvh yum-2.0.4-20031205.noarch.rpm
rpm -e Kernel-Win4Lin3-Fedora1.0_2.4.22.12115-01
rpm -ivh Kernel-Win4Lin3-Fedora1.0_2.4.22.12129-01.i586.rpm
rpm -e Kernel-Win4Lin3-Fedora1.0_2.4.22.12129-01
rpm -ivh Kernel-Win4Lin3-Fedora1.0_2.4.22.12135-01.i586.rpm
rpm -ivh mplayer-codecs-win32-qt-6.0-1.i386.rpm
rpm -e mplayer-codecs-win32-qt-6.0-1
rpm -e Kernel-Win4Lin3-Fedora1.0_2.4.22.12135-01
rpm -ivh Kernel-Win4Lin3-Fedora1.0_2.4.22.12140-01.i586.rpm
rpm -e Kernel-Win4Lin3-Fedora1.0_2.4.22.12140-01
rpm -ivh Kernel-Win4Lin3-Fedora1.0_2.4.22.12149-01.i586.rpm
rpm -ivh rp8.linux20.libc6.i386.cs2.rpm

After that there is a lot of manual cleanup.<s>

I only use yum and rpm to add/remove software and only use rpm manually 
when there's no handy repository. (yes the win4lin thing _is_ getting 
repetitious)

The messiest spot before the trouble started was a failed attempt at 
nvidia drivers:

yum install nvidia-glx kernel-module-nvidia-driver
yum remove XFree86-Mesa-libGL
yum install kernel-module-nvidia-driver-2.4.22-1.2129.nptl
rpm -e --nodeps XFree86-Mesa-libGL
yum install nvidia-glx
shutdown -r now
yum remove nvidia-glx
rpm -e nvidia-glx
rpm -e --nodeps nvidia-glx
rpm -ivh XFree86-Mesa-libGL
yum install XFree86-Mesa-libGL
yum remove kernel-module-nvidia-driver-2.4.22-1.2129.nptl

But that was back in December of last year.

The only difference between the destructive yum update and all the 
others was having yum 2.0.5-1.fd.fr.noarch as part of the plain yum update.

For now I've added "exclude yum" to my /etc/yum.conf but that's a little 
heavy handed.

I have one other box that got yum 2.0.5-1.fd.fr.noarch as part of a 
manual yum update. I can't get to it right now. But, I do recall that it 
needed rpm --rebuilddb because yum (and/or rpm) started displaying "BAD 
KEY ID" errors. I'll let you know if there's more to tell about that box.

Anyway I'll be glad to provide any additional info,

Cliff Kent