Hi Jeff,

Jeff Johnson wrote:
> rpm-4.0.4 was the last version of rpm that supported "db1" format.
> 
> SuSE (the last vendor that used "db1" format) wanted/needed to
> convert "db1" format, so the implementation was resurrected
> and retro-fitted into a convertdb1 tool for SuSE (convertdb1
> was written by Michael Scroeder).

Thank you for your detailed explanation of the upgrade process!

> The basic steps aren't hard. What will be hard is guaranteeing fully
> automated seamless transparent upgrades. That takes practice
> and an understanding of the failure points in your upgrade process.
> E.g. running out of disk space.

Luckily all boxes have almost the same partition layout and the same
packages installed, so I don't expect much trouble on this side.

> These are the steps:
>    0) doing --rebuilddb to start in a "known" state.
>    1) converting /var/lib/rpm/Packages from db1 -> db3 format.
>    2) doing --rebuilddb to rebuild the indices.
>    3) upgrading rpm itself and whatever uses rpmlibs (like net-snmp).
> 
> Usually steps 1) and 2) were done together using --rebuilddb in rpm-4.0.4.

Ok. I'm going to try the convertdb1 approach first.

> But one could install a version of rpm w/o "db1" support
> and then convert /var/lib/rpm/Packages using convertdb1,
> finally proceeding to rpm --rebuilddb to regenerate the indices.
> Note that if you fail to achieve the conversion with convertdb1,
> you will end-up with a version of rpm installed that cannot
> read the "db1" format database.

I'll better make sure to check the exit codes
of the converter and rpm --rebuilddb ;-)

> As long as you have the original copy of /var/lib/rpm/Packages,
> one can usually return to the original without difficulty.
> 
> Have you tried a conversion with --rebuilddb in rpm-4.0.4 yet?

I haven't tried it yet as I remember there was some threading related
berkley db trouble when Redhat 7.x was released with rpm 4.0.x,
though I'm blurry on the details. So I'll try to get convertdb1
running with the latest version that included it.

Out of curiosity, would it be possible to replace the
rpm version included in the Fedora 11 installer with rpm 5.x?

Cheers,
Thomas