[Bug 1069350] Re: suspicious /.rpmdb root directory

[Mike Miller]

These directories can indeed be safely removed.

On Ubuntu and other non-rpm-based systems, rpm is typically used to
build and inspect RPM packages, not to install them or manage a
database. The problem for non-rpm-based systems is that the rpm tool
cannot (currently) operate on package files without accessing its
database. If the rpmdb doesn't exist, you get a nasty warning (that
calls itself an error) with every command:

$ rpm -qp fedora-release-18-0.8.noarch.rpm 
error: cannot open Packages database in /var/lib/rpm
fedora-release-18-0.8.noarch

The fix for Debian and Ubuntu was to configure rpm such that it creates
a database in $HOME/.rpmdb, since $HOME should normally be writable. See
http://bugs.debian.org/551669.

If you want to prevent these directories from being created, you could
try to figure out what process is running rpm with HOME set to null or
/. I agree with #3, it sounds like cron.

Bottom line, I'm not sure what the bug is here. A lot of Linux commands
and applications generate configuration files or directories as a side
effect of running, and if you run them as root without a HOME, you'll
get the same effect.

** Bug watch added: Debian Bug tracker #551669
   http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=551669

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Title:
  suspicious /.rpmdb root directory

Status in rpm package manager:
  Opinion
Status in “rpm” package in Ubuntu:
  Confirmed

Bug description:
  I have the following directory structure on my system which conflicts
  to the LSB standard:

  ls -ld /.rpmdb/{,*}
  drwxr-xr-x 2 root root     4096 Okt 21  2011 /.rpmdb/
  -rw-r--r-- 1 root root     8192 Okt 21  2011 /.rpmdb/Basenames
  -rw-r--r-- 1 root root     8192 Okt 21  2011 /.rpmdb/Conflictname
  -rw-r--r-- 1 root root    24576 Apr 27 00:52 /.rpmdb/__db.001
  -rw-r--r-- 1 root root  4096000 Apr 27 00:52 /.rpmdb/__db.002
  -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 83894272 Apr 27 00:52 /.rpmdb/__db.003
  -rw-r--r-- 1 root root   811008 Apr 27 00:52 /.rpmdb/__db.004
  -rw-r--r-- 1 root root     8192 Okt 21  2011 /.rpmdb/Dirnames
  -rw-r--r-- 1 root root     8192 Okt 21  2011 /.rpmdb/Group
  -rw-r--r-- 1 root root     8192 Okt 21  2011 /.rpmdb/Installtid
  -rw-r--r-- 1 root root     8192 Okt 21  2011 /.rpmdb/Name
  -rw-r--r-- 1 root root     8192 Okt 21  2011 /.rpmdb/Obsoletename
  -rw-r--r-- 1 root root    12288 Okt 21  2011 /.rpmdb/Packages
  -rw-r--r-- 1 root root     8192 Okt 21  2011 /.rpmdb/Providename
  -rw-r--r-- 1 root root     8192 Okt 21  2011 /.rpmdb/Requirename
  -rw-r--r-- 1 root root     8192 Okt 21  2011 /.rpmdb/Sha1header
  -rw-r--r-- 1 root root     8192 Okt 21  2011 /.rpmdb/Sigmd5
  -rw-r--r-- 1 root root     8192 Okt 21  2011 /.rpmdb/Triggername

  Afaik, this directory belongs to rpm or alien. Maybe it appears
  because of a lack of environment variables (e.g. $HOME not set) in
  particular situations.

  As you can see in the listing, the directory is not used frequently,
  but I'm not sure if it's save to delete it. Maybe the problem is
  already solved in the current version of ubuntu (at last the time the
  files were touched I was running Ubuntu 11.10), but I think it's
  important to have this bug registered so other users can find it.
  There is an active thread about it at ubuntuforums:
  http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1864423

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