[Rpm-maint] RPM database on NFS root

[Panu Matilainen]

On Fri, 20 Jul 2007, Mark Hatle wrote:

> Jeremy Sanders wrote:
>> Are there any plans to be able to host an RPM database over NFS? See
>> https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=141614
>
> In my experience (due to NFS locking), it's not possible to do an RPM
> database over NFS.  However you do have some options.
>
>> For our manchines which use remote root over nfs, we use an ext3 filesystem
>> mounted over gnbd network block devices to place the rpm database, which
>> appears to work (except gnbd is missing from Fedora...) It would be nice
>> not to have to do this.
>
> You can either use sqlite (which is probably a bit slower, and I'm not
> sure if it's still available in the rpm-maint 4.4.2.X branch.  It _WAS_
> in stock 4.4.2 and the rpm5.org's tree.)  If you go down the route of
> the sqlite database, it's still only key/value pair driven, and is much
> slower the the berkleyDB interface.  You may also STILL encounter
> locking issues w/ sqlite (but in practice I never encountered them...)

Sqlite is available in rpm.org tree as well, no intention to remove it.

> Or you can use RPC for the berkley DB interface.  I don't have details
> on this, but this will use a more reliable network interface to go back
> to the host for the RPM database access.  This is probably be more
> reliable then sqlite.

Probably the best available documentation on the subject is here:
https://www.redhat.com/archives/rpm-list/2003-May/msg00383.html

 	- Panu -