pkgadd problem:summary

Thanks for the replies.
The summary is given below.

1.Reply from Michael

 The error is
>
> ## Processing package information.
> ## Processing system information.
>     bad entry read from contents file
>     - pathname: Unknown
>     - problem: unknown ftype
> pkgadd: ERROR: unable to merge package and system information

Looks like your /var/sadm/install/contents file is corrupt. Have a look.
It might be fixable by hand. If not, you have to either get an old copy
from taoe backup or recreate one from scratch.

- Michael

2.Reply from system administration account

On 2002-07-06 16:15:28 +0530, gangadharan.manikandan@polaris.co.in wrote:
> Hello,
> I am unable to add a package to my E-250 solaris 7 machine.
>
> The error is
>
> ## Processing package information.
> ## Processing system information.
>     bad entry read from contents file

Oy veh...

That message means that /var/sadm/install/contents got corrupted.

Sun does not provide any tools to regenerate the proper contents
of that file (and it's a difficult problem, since one has to look
at the postinstall scripts to figure out any installf's and
removef's that were done).

If you've got a recent backup of your system, try restoring from that.
You should restore *all* files that are mentioned in the backup's
/var/sadm/install/contents, except perhaps for configuration files.
(If you've properly documented all your configuration changes since
the backup was taken, that will help you immensely.) Then reapply
your patches, carefully and in single-user mode. (You may want to
take a backup of /var/sadm/install/contents before every patch,
and check the new version after every patch.) s/patch/package/
as appropriate (I see this kind of corruption mostly during patchadd
runs, but of course package installation uses the same tools).

If you haven't got a recent backup, then you have basically two choices.
The safe but possibly painful one is to wipe out the OE and reinstall
from scratch. You ought to be prepared to do this at any time (e.g.
following a security breach), but it isn't fun. The adventurous choice
is to hand-edit /var/sadm/install/contents and make it syntactically
correct (no truncated lines, no blocks full of NULs). Depending on the
details of what was lost, this may cause further trouble down the road.
You can of course take the easy-but-imperfect way out now, and rebuild
your server's OE at some later date (e.g. when upgrading it to
Solaris 9 or whatever). It's up to you and your circumstances.


3.reply from Sid Wilroy

I would go ahead and install in a specific directory instead of the
admin info in the pkg -
So use pkgadd -R /export/opt/software -d pkg

Are you sure the pkg is for your kernel version? 32bit 64bit??

# isainfo -vk
 32-bit sparc kernel modules

It might have to do with the admin file..
See if there is something wrong with the pkg and do a pkginfo and get a
list of all the files.. If pkginfo doesn't work on the file there
something wrong..

THanks
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