[BlueOnyx:05418] YUM updates - PHP problems - suPHP - third party repositories

[Michael Stauber]

Hi all,

On the list we had a few topics during the last week regarding PHP being 
broken after some YUM updates were installed.

Team BlueOnyx didn't release any updates that caused this, nor was there any 
CentOS update that caused this. Nor could we reproduce the problem until we 
got login details to one affected box.

If you were affected, then the problem is that you unfortunately - against our 
advice - tied your server into a third party YUM repository such as RPMforge 
or Dag Wieers. You should have read /etc/yum.repos.d/0_WARNING.txt before you 
stuck a third party repository file into that directory. I'm sorry if this 
sounds harsh, but that's really how it is. 

DAG's YUM repository and the RPMforge repository for CentOS5 both contain 
conflicting RPMs that will seriously mess up your BlueOnyx box if you use 
them. This has always been the case, but it got more destructive during the 
last couple of weeks. So tie your servers into their YUM repositories and the 
next "yum update" may be the last one.

Because then about 20 system RPMs will be replaced with supposedly "newer" 
versions if you use third party YUM repositories like these against our 
advice. This includes (depending on the repository) PHP, suPHP, "swatch" 
(active monitor component) and some Perl modules. 

The net result will be:

PHP will stop working on all sites
phpMyAdmin will break
Active Monitor will no longer work
Some Perl scripts depending on the presence of certain Perl modules will no 
longer work (affects CMU and SpamAssassin)
YUM even may no longer work (depends on the repository)

While this damage can be fixed, it requires the removal of most third party 
RPMs and the reinstall of them from the BlueOnyx or CentOS YUM repositories.

First of all you should delete your rpmforge.repo and dag.repo file from 
/etc/yum.repos.d/, though. 

Then - as the bare minimum - run this commands:

	rpm -e swatch mod_suphp phpMyAdmin --nodeps
	yum install swatch mod_suphp phpMyAdmin
	service admserv restart
	service cced.init restart
	service httpd restart

That removes and reinstalls swatch, mod_suphp and phpMyAdmin. But of course: 
If the previous update also broke your "yum", then you might have to grab the 
"good" RPMs through other means like a direct HTTP download with "wget", or 
using "rpm -hUv http://URL/to/RPM".

-- 
With best regards

Michael Stauber