Hello,
I'm glad that it's working for you again.  But I am really quite puzzled 
about this.  If this happens again, please send the output of

   rpm -q yum
   rpm -V yum
   yum -d 10 check-update

Here's why I'm really puzzled.  up2date is really using yum as it's 
backend.  You can check it by looking at it's config file at
/etc/sysconfig/rhn/sources

Thanks
Troy

Winnie Lacesso wrote:
> Dear All,
> 
> Recalling a previous problem where yum was too broken to update 
> something on an RH box, but a colleague found that up2date worked, the 
> same trick was tried here, & seems to have fixed yum.
> 
> root@bf41> yum check-update
> 'import site' failed; use -v for traceback
> There was a problem importing one of the Python modules
> required to run yum. The error leading to this problem was:
> 
>    No module named yum
> 
> [ snip - as before ]
> 
> root@bf41> which python
> /usr/bin/python
> root@bf41> ll /usr/bin/python
> -rwxr-xr-x  2 root root 5396 Mar 14 17:30 /usr/bin/python*
> root@bf41> file /usr/bin/python
> /usr/bin/python: ELF 32-bit LSB executable, Intel 80386, version 1 
> (SYSV), for GNU/Linux 2.2.5, dynamically linked (uses shared libs), 
> stripped
> root@bf41> up2date python
> 0.  debug              No 1.  useRhn             No 2.  
> rhnuuid            5552bee2-d6e0-11da-8c41-0002b3e739c7 3.  
> isatty             Yes 4.  showAvailablePacka No
> 
> [ snip - long list ]
> 
> Enter number of item to edit <return to exit, q to quit without saving>: 
> Your GPG keyring does not contain the Red Hat, Inc. public key.
> Without it, you will be unable to verify that packages Update Agent 
> downloads
> are securely signed by Red Hat.
> Your Update Agent options specify that you want to use GPG.
> To install the key, run the following as root:
>      rpm --import /usr/share/rhn/RPM-GPG-KEY
> 
> root@bf41>      rpm --import /usr/share/rhn/RPM-GPG-KEY
> root@bf41> up2date python
> 
> Fetching Obsoletes list for channel: scientific-base...
> Fetching obsoletes list for 
> ftp://ftp.scientificlinux.org/linux/scientific/4x/i386/SL/RPMS/...
> #######################################
> Fetching Obsoletes list for channel: scientific-errata...
> Fetching obsoletes list for 
> ftp://ftp.scientificlinux.org/linux/scientific/4x/i386/errata/SL/RPMS/...
> #######################################
> Fetching rpm headers...
> ########################################
> Name                                    Version        Rel 
> ----------------------------------------------------------
> The following packages you requested are already updated:
> python
> 
> root@bf41> yum check-update
> Loading "kernel-module" plugin
> Setting up repositories
> sl-base                   100% |=========================| 1.1 kB    
> 00:00 sl-errata                 100% |=========================|  951 
> B    00:00 Reading repository metadata in from local files
> primary.xml.gz            100% |=========================| 493 kB    
> 00:01 sl-base   : ################################################## 
> 1502/1502
> Added 1502 new packages, deleted 0 old in 11.96 seconds
> primary.xml.gz            100% |=========================| 179 kB    
> 00:00 sl-errata : ################################################## 
> 415/415
> Added 415 new packages, deleted 0 old in 4.36 seconds
> 
> So yum works again.
> 
> It is not clear what up2date python did - looking for things with that
> timestamp in /usr, /var, /etc shows some in /var/lib (/var/spool/up2date 
> of course); /var/log/up2date just says "up2date availablePackageList from
> network2".
> 
> -rw-r--r--   1 rpm      rpm        331776 May  3 08:24 
> ./lib/rpm/Providename
> -rw-r--r--   1 rpm      rpm         16384 May  3 08:24 ./lib/rpm/Installtid
> -rw-r--r--   1 rpm      rpm         98304 May  3 08:24 
> ./lib/rpm/Provideversion
> -rw-r--r--   1 rpm      rpm         45056 May  3 08:24 ./lib/rpm/Name
> -rw-r--r--   1 rpm      rpm         12288 May  3 08:24 ./lib/rpm/Group
> -rw-r--r--   1 rpm      rpm      34594816 May  3 08:24 ./lib/rpm/Packages
> -rw-r--r--   1 rpm      rpm         12288 May  3 08:24 ./lib/rpm/Pubkeys
> 
> These are all Berkeley DB, so one/some of them might've been corrupt.
> Thanks to all for support & help. It would be useful to know how to 
> reproduce the original problem & investigate
> exactly what fixed what... someone apply for a research grant for that!


-- 
__________________________________________________
Troy Dawson  [log in to unmask]  (630)840-6468
Fermilab  ComputingDivision/CSS  CSI Group
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