gawk linked to itself after update

[daytooner]

(Just saw sticky about bash bug. Will try re-install, and get back here)


After doing an update (for F16) things went from bad to worse.

The new kernel didn't get installed properly, since grubby failed to run. But that was caused by (g)awk not being found. While tracing that problem down, I found:

/usr/bin/gawk -> ../../bin/gawk
/bin/gawk -> ../usr/bin/gawk

This also creates a problem for booting with a previous kernel as well, since it needs to run awk.

So, like, where is the real gawk?

I tried to reinstall gawk (via yum). But even if I deleted both symlinks, the reinstall just puts them both back.

FWIW: Looking at an F17 installation, I see that a real gawk is in both directories (no links). In an old F14 installation there is a real gawk in /bin, and a symlink to that in /usr/bin.

Any suggestions on how to correct this?

TIA

ken

[hmmsjan]

Dear Daytooner,

A quick install of the f16 updates RPM gawk-4.0.1-1.fc16.i686.rpm
(into empty root folder)
shows the following structure:

ls -l bin usr/bin
bin:
totaal 868
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 4 9 jul 07:32 awk -> gawk
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 483652 7 jun 14:00 dgawk
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 400184 7 jun 14:00 gawk

usr/bin:
totaal 396
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 14 9 jul 07:32 awk -> ../../bin/gawk
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 14 9 jul 07:32 gawk -> ../../bin/gawk
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 3188 7 jun 14:00 igawk
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 400184 7 jun 14:00 pgawk

The so the "real" gawk must be /bin/gawk. I assume you're upgrading F16 with the classical
separate /bin and /usr/bin directories ?!
With /bin as symlink to /usr/bin it looks like gawk is overwritten by it's symlink....


Also in F17 there is only one gawk binary: the whole /bin is a symlink to /usr/bin.

Good luck

[daytooner]

Originally Posted by hmmsjan

I assume you're upgrading F16 with the classical
separate /bin and /usr/bin directories ?!
With /bin as symlink to /usr/bin it looks like gawk is overwritten by it's symlink....


Also in F17 there is only one gawk binary: the whole /bin is a symlink to /usr/bin.

Good luck

In my F16, bin is a symlink to usr/bin, and this is what happens:

[root@Foghorn /]# ls -lh /bin/gawk
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 14 Jul  8 21:10 /bin/gawk -> ../../bin/gawk
[root@Foghorn bin]# ls -lh /usr/bin/gawk
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 14 Jul  9 16:59 /usr/bin/gawk -> ../../bin/gawk

Tried removing the gawk symlink in /bin , then reinstalling gawk, but as you pointed out, the symlink overwrites the actual file.

Can I get the actual file and manually put it into /usr/bin? If so, where can I get it?

FWIW: I thought this might have been caused by the "bash" bug mentioned in the sticky in this forum. But I did try reinstalling bash, and that did nothing to fix this.

I also have a problem with vim: trying to install both vim-minimal and vim-enahnced yum complains:

Transaction Check Error:
  file /bin/ex from install of vim-minimal-2:7.3.515-2.fc16.x86_64 conflicts with file from package vim-enhanced-2:7.3.515-2.fc16.x86_64

Looks like something got really hosed in my installation.

I might just to do a fresh install of F17 to get past this.

Thx for the help.

ken

[cazo]

Did you install gawk from testing or rawhide repo? The reason I ask is, my gawk looks like:

[root@localhost ~]# ls -lh /bin/gawk 
-rwxr-xr-x. 1 root root 417K Jun  7 07:00 /bin/gawk
[root@localhost ~]# ls -lh /usr/bin/gawk 
lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root 14 Jun 30 07:13 /usr/bin/gawk -> ../../bin/gawk

Mine is gawk-4.0.1-1.fc16.x86_64, which was last updated on 30 Jun 2012.

[hmmsjan]

Dear Daytooner,

From the Fedora 16->17 upgrade notes where conversion to symlinked /bin is described:

After the conversion, the system needs to be immediately updated to Fedora 17. No packages from Fedora 16 or Fedora 15, or older rawhide packages must be installed anymore. Make sure to disable any Fedora 15 and Fedora 16 repositories in yum!

If you want to have a working gawk again:

#####Boot rescue system with network support and mount current installation
chroot /mnt/sysimage
#####Download the gawk RPM with e.g. wget
cd /
rpm2cpio /home/user/Download/gawk-4.0.1-1.fc16.i686.rpm | cpio -ivd ./bin/gawk

Good luck and be prepared for more problems!