RHEL: yum update - rpmforge causes segmentation fault

So, rpmforge is throwing errors today that look like:

# yum info rpmforge-release
Loaded plugins: rhnplugin, security
rpmforge   | 1.1 kB     00:00     
rpmforge: [####    ] 471/10722Segmentation fault

This happens any time that you do a 'yum check-update', 'yum update', 'yum search packagename', etc. The issue also happens with rpmforge-extras on this machine (if I disable the rpmforge repository). Disabling the rpmforge and rpmforge-extras repositories does temporarily fix the issue, but it means you cannot get updates from rpmforge / rpmforge-extras until it is fixed.

The following will not fix the issue (nor will most of the suggestions at the end):

# yum clean all
# yum makecache

Unfortunately, all of the search results are turning up either link-farms or issues not related to the yum software. But I'm still looking for answers.  (See the end of the post for the latest information.)

Suggestion #1: /var/lib/rpm/__db.* (from Jan 2007)

# cd /var/lib/rpm/
# rm __db.*
(that's two underscores)
# rpm --rebuilddb

Unfortunately, it didn't fix this particular issue.

Suggestion #2: /var/cache/yum/

Remove the rpmforge and rpmforge-extras directory, then have yum rebuild its cache (using either "yum update" or "yum makecache"). No luck here either for this particular issue.

Suggestion #3: uninstall / reinstall rpmforge-release RPM

# rpm -e rpmforge-release
# rpm -i rpmforge-release-0.5.2-2.el6.rf.*.rpm

No real luck there either.

Suggestion #4: Related to a recent "yum update"

As others here have noted, there was a large "yum update" (for the 5.7 release) this week on our RHEL5 server. An update which has not yet reached our CentOS 5 boxes, which are not misbehaving. Looking at the list of what was updated, there were 142 packages in this week's update. Some of the possibly interesting ones to this issue might be:

yum-security-1.1.16-16.el5.noarch.rpm
rhnsd-4.7.0-10.el5.x86_64.rpm
rhn-check-0.4.20-56.el5.noarch.rpm
authconfig-gtk-5.3.21-7.el5.x86_64.rpm
zlib-1.2.3-4.el5.i386.rpm
zlib-1.2.3-4.el5.x86_64.rpm
redhat-release-5Server-5.7.0.3.x86_64.rpm
yum-rhn-plugin-0.5.4-22.el5.noarch.rpm
rhnlib-2.5.22-6.el5.noarch.rpm
zlib-devel-1.2.3-4.el5.i386.rpm
zlib-devel-1.2.3-4.el5.x86_64.rpm
rhn-setup-0.4.20-56.el5.noarch.rpm
yum.noarch 0:3.2.22-37.el5

The list of packages that rpmforge-release depends on:

# rpm -qR rpmforge-release
/bin/sh  
config(rpmforge-release) = 0.5.1-1.el5.rf
rpmlib(CompressedFileNames) <= 3.0.4-1
rpmlib(PayloadFilesHavePrefix) <= 4.0-1

The packages that yum depends on:

# rpm -qR yum
/usr/bin/python  
config(yum) = 3.2.22-33.el5.centos
python >= 2.4
python(abi) = 2.4
python-elementtree  
python-iniparse  
python-sqlite  
rpm >= 0:4.4.2
rpm-python  
rpmlib(CompressedFileNames) <= 3.0.4-1
rpmlib(PayloadFilesHavePrefix) <= 4.0-1
rpmlib(VersionedDependencies) <= 3.0.3-1
urlgrabber >= 3.1.0
yum-fastestmirror  
yum-metadata-parser >= 1.1.0

Off-hand, and since the compression library has caused issues in the past, I'm thinking maybe an issue with zlib. Update: Someone has posted a stack trace below in the comments which points to an issue other then zlib. A bunch of gcc / glibc files were also updated on my server today:

gcc.x86_64 0:4.1.2-51.el5
gcc-c++.x86_64 0:4.1.2-51.el5
gcc-gfortran.x86_64 0:4.1.2-51.el5
gdb.x86_64 0:7.0.1-37.el5
glibc.i686 0:2.5-65
glibc.x86_64 0:2.5-65
glibc-common.x86_64 0:2.5-65
glibc-devel.i386 0:2.5-65
glibc-devel.x86_64 0:2.5-65
glibc-headers.x86_64 0:2.5-65

Suggestion #5 or Update #5:

Looks like a bug.  Reports on the CentOS-Users and RPMForge user's mailing lists are indicating that they are starting to get to the bottom of the issue. There's an issue with a package in the RPMForge repository with strange/incorrect metadata and that's causing bad things to happen in yum.

See Bug 725798 - yum segmentation fault on rpmforge repository over at Red Hat's bug tracker.

Latest posts from the mailing lists indicate that both issues are being addressed today.  So you can temporarily disable rpmforge / rpmforge-extras and do your other updates, or delay all updates for a day or two until it is fixed.

Update #6:

Everything now works correctly again. You may want to run a "yum clean all" and "yum makecache" to refresh your metadata cache files.


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