How to Recover Corrupt RPM Database on CentOS 8

Sometime rpm database corrupt message displays during working with RPM or YUM/DNF as shown in below screen. So, rpm database rebuilding requires to work further with RPM or YUM/DNF.

[root@linuxcnf ~]# dnf reinstall iperf error: db5 error(12) from dbenv->open: Cannot allocate memory error: db5 error(22) from dbenv->close: Invalid argument error: cannot open Packages index using db5 - Cannot allocate memory (12) error: cannot open Packages database in /var/lib/rpm Error: Error: rpmdb open failed [root@linuxcnf ~]#

 

This article describes How to Recover Corrupt RPM Database on CentOS 8.

 

Step 1. Backup RPM Database: Run the following command to take backup of existing database in case any unforeseen issue occur.

 

[root@linuxcnf ~]# mv /var/lib/rpm/__db.00* /tmp/ [root@linuxcnf ~]#

 

Step 2. Clean YUM Repository: Run the following command to clean all dnf repository data:

 

[root@linuxcnf ~]# dnf clean all 29 files removed [root@linuxcnf ~]#

 

Step 3. Validate: Now try to install/reinstall any packages to confirm if the issue is resolved or not:

 

[root@linuxcnf ~]# dnf reinstall iperf ……………………. Reinstalled:   iperf-2.1.6-2.el8.x86_64   Complete! [root@linuxcnf ~]#

 

Done!!! Now the RPM database issue resolved on CentOS 8. Once we remove existing database the YUM/DNF automatically rebuild/create database as when we run any yum/dnf command.