Fixing the RPM Database

Occasionally, the RPM database on a system will become corrupt and need rebuilding.

If you get errors like this:

error: rpmdbNextIterator: skipping h#     834 Header V3 DSA signature: BAD, key ID db42a60e
error: rpmdbNextIterator: skipping h#     842 Header V3 DSA signature: BAD, key ID db42a60e
error: rpmdbNextIterator: skipping h#     850 Header V3 DSA signature: BAD, key ID db42a60e

The issue is caused by a bad GPG Key. Also note that this is a full-fledged way to rebuild the rpm database and the PubKeys.

cd /var/lib/rpm
rm __db.00[123]
mv Pubkeys Pubkeys.bad
wget http://www.redhat.com/security/db42a60e.txt
rpm --import db42a60e.txt
rpm --rebuilddb