A customer emailed in today with a fresh install and was having problems with a basic upgrade.

I tried running a yum update from the Webmin control panel, and got this error for the ‘rpm’ package:

Updating : rpm [ 73/147]Error unpacking rpm package rpm-4.4.2.3-18.el5.i386
error: unpacking of archive failed on file /etc/cron.daily/rpm: cpio: rename

I then logged in and tried to run ‘yum upgrade rpm’ and got the following error as well:

Running Transaction
Updating : rpm 1/2
Error unpacking rpm package rpm-4.4.2.3-18.el5.i386
error: unpacking of archive failed on file /etc/cron.daily/rpm: cpio: rename
Failed:
rpm.i386 0:4.4.2.3-18.el5

I logged in and tried to manually move the file and got the following

[root@black-lotus ~]# mv /etc/cron.daily/rpm /etc/cron.daily/rpm-old
mv: cannot move `/etc/cron.daily/rpm’ to `/etc/cron.daily/rpm-old’: Operation not permitted

So i checked the permissions

[root@black-lotus ~]# ls -l /etc/cron.daily/rpm
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 408 Oct 21 17:09 /etc/cron.daily/rpm

Nothing wrong with that, is it set immutable with chattr?

[root@black-lotus ~]# lsattr /etc/cron.daily/rpm
—-i——– /etc/cron.daily/rpm

Yes it is, it was set so its undeleteable. I fixed that with the following

[root@black-lotus ~]# chattr -i /etc/cron.daily/rpm
[root@black-lotus ~]# lsattr /etc/cron.daily/rpm
————- /etc/cron.daily/rpm

Then updated.

[root@black-lotus ~]# yum update
Loaded plugins: fastestmirror
Loading mirror speeds from cached hostfile
* addons: mirror.skiplink.com
* base: mirrors.adams.net
* extras: mirrors.combinetworks.com
* updates: www.cyberuse.com
Setting up Update Process
Resolving Dependencies
–> Running transaction check
—> Package rpm.i386 0:4.4.2.3-18.el5 set to be updated
–> Finished Dependency Resolution

Dependencies Resolved

====================================================================================================================================
Package Arch Version Repository Size
====================================================================================================================================
Updating:
rpm i386 4.4.2.3-18.el5 base 1.2 M

Transaction Summary
====================================================================================================================================
Install 0 Package(s)
Update 1 Package(s)
Remove 0 Package(s)

Total download size: 1.2 M
Is this ok [y/N]: y
Downloading Packages:
rpm-4.4.2.3-18.el5.i386.rpm | 1.2 MB 00:08
Running rpm_check_debug
Running Transaction Test
Finished Transaction Test
Transaction Test Succeeded
Running Transaction
Updating : rpm 1/2
Cleanup : rpm 2/2

Updated:
rpm.i386 0:4.4.2.3-18.el5

Complete!

Problem fixed :)