[Yum] Yum fails when postfix is running

[seth vidal]

On Wed, 2010-07-07 at 23:55 +0100, Matthew Valentino wrote:
> I've come across an issue I don't know how to deal with and I cannot
> find any answers anywhere!
> 
> 
> I'm getting the following error when I try to run yum, but only when
> postfix is running:
> 
> 
> There was a problem importing one of the Python modules
> required to run yum. The error leading to this problem was:
> 
> 
>    No module named rpmUtils
> 
> 
> Please install a package which provides this module, or
> verify that the module is installed correctly.
> 
> 
> It's possible that the above module doesn't match the
> current version of Python, which is:
> 2.4.3 (#1, Sep  3 2009, 15:37:37) 
> [GCC 4.1.2 20080704 (Red Hat 4.1.2-46)]
> 
> 
> If you cannot solve this problem yourself, please go to 
> the yum faq at:
>   http://wiki.linux.duke.edu/YumFaq
> 
> 
> 
> 
> As soon as I stop Postfix, yum works again perfectly. I'm really not
> sure why it's causing this or what to do. I did compile and install
> postfix 2.7-1 myself; I skipped over the version in the CentOS
> repository.

I suspect that something postfix is running is redefining the pythonpath
on your system.

after postfix runs run:

echo $PYTHONPATH

I suspect that yum's modules is not in anything in that path.

-sv