[NTLUG:Discuss] CPIO

[Kelledin]

On Thursday 17 April 2003 01:54 pm, Greg Edwards wrote:
> Jim Adams wrote:
> > Trying to install SuSE 8.0 after getting tired of Mandrake,
> > no flames please. During install certain packages return
> > errors and the log says something about CPIO, and bad magic.
> > Any ideas? It’s pretty up to date hardware and such.

Ummm.  Strange.

I think part of the reason rpm is giving cpio errors is because 
rpm actually uses cpio format in packing its files.  AFAICT it 
has its own internal cpio engine for this, so that it doesn't 
have to rely on an external cpio utility.

"Bad magic" usually means either an RPM file is coming off 
corrupt, or as someone mentioned, the magic files are b0rked.  I 
wouldn't expect rpm to rely on the magic files, though, 
especially as /bin/rpm goes out of its way not to rely on 
ANYTHING but /bin/rpm during RPM installation.

> This is not hardware related.  The cpio utility (along with a
> lot of others) uses the magic files to help identify the type
> of file it is accessing.  I think cpio uses the files in
> /usr/share/magic for this. Did you somehow tell install not to
> include the magic files?

Well, since this is happening during installation, where 
everything should just be on CD or floppy media, I wouldn't 
expect the magic files to be an issue--unless the install media 
itself is jacked, or SuSE messed up writing the install scripts 
(both very unlikely).

FWIW, I've seen memory errors cause problems that looked like 
media errors.  It probably wouldn't hurt to get yourself a copy 
of memtest86 on boot-floppy and give it a spin.

-- 
Kelledin
"If a server crashes in a server farm and no one pings it, does 
it still cost four figures to fix?"