[PLUG] Hosed rpm database...

[plug_0 at robinson-west.com]

I accidentally used the P option to tar improperly again and started hosing
/var on a Fedora Core 3 system.  Forunately, I stopped the command and this
system obviously still works.  Question, is there any trick to rebuild the
rpm database?  I untarred a Fedora Core 1 var image partially over my /var
directory.  I'd love some tips to find out what files were overwritten by
my mistake.  For starters, I can output tar's messages to a file and kill
the command when it gets to var so I can tell what files are likely to be
broken.

It would be sweet with a local copy of the archive to see which files 
on my main system match the files in the copy exactly.

Silly question, but why don't the security enhancements of SE Linux protect
against clobbering /var, /dev, /etc, etcetera?

If anyone is wondering, I was trying to untar a system so I can NFS root
boot it off of this machine.  Frustratingly enough though, this is the
second time I've partially corrupted the host system.

It would make an awful lot of sense for Fedora to have a tool to rebuild
a list of what's installed from the rpms themselves.  There should be a
special installation option where rpm determines for a binary package if
that package is installed to the system already, even if the local rpm
database under /var is trashed.

Michael C. Robinson

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