I broke pacman when i updated the mirrorlist

nygmatic · 2013-07-10 17:14:40

Was reading through the wiki after getting a very...barebones install. I read that it's wise to keep your mirrorlist up to date, and my USB installer was created over a year ago, so I figured I would hop over to the mirror generator and get me a new list.

I replaced the old mirrorlist, ran pacman-key --init and pacman-key --populate archlinux as described by the wiki, then hit pacman -Syy....wherein pacman told me in a long stream of words to piss off.

My error is the same as this person:
https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=162202

I went through the topic, with every solution having zero effect. No changes in errors, no fixing the issue. Nothng.
Near the end of the first page, someone mentions checking var/lib/pacman/sync to see if there are any .sig files and how the custom Xfercommand the OP was using was causing that to happen. To delete the .sig's and comment out the Xfercommand.

This worked for the OP, and I did have the sig files, but not only do I have no custom Xfercommand, but both of the ones there are already commented out.

pacman.conf:

http://pastebin.com/yfqvatq3

Last edited by nygmatic (2013-07-10 18:15:30)

karol · 2013-07-10 17:34:34

vi is in base too.

Are you trying to tell me that even changing SigLevel to Never didn't help?

Strike0 · 2013-07-10 17:38:38

Welcome to the forum. I don't have a suggestion for you (would be helpful, if you coud post the error log pacman actually gives you now). I posted a pacman.conf here for you to compare: http://sprunge.us/eBTZ
You can do the same with yours (or pipe the error you get) like this:

curl -F 'sprunge=@-' http://sprunge.us </etc/pacman.conf

nygmatic · 2013-07-10 17:59:28

So I did manage to fix this issue. I had a backup of both my mirrorlist and pacman.conf from when I first installed (and forgot about).

Reloaded both, replaced the mirrorlist with the new one, set siglevel to never, and reran everything. Worked.
I DID have siglevel set to Never before hand but it wasnt working for whatever reason.

I have a question though, is it wise from a security standpoint to have the (what I assume is) the universal Siglevel set to never? Would it be smarter to set the siglevel to something else and then set individual databases to never?

jasonwryan · 2013-07-10 18:04:19

nygmatic wrote:

I have a question though, is it wise from a security standpoint to have the (what I assume is) the universal Siglevel set to never? Would it be smarter to set the siglevel to something else and then set individual databases to never?

No, package signing was implemented for a reason. All of the packages in the official repos are signed now so you should take advantage of that.

SigLevel = Required DatabaseOptional

is a sane default.

karol · 2013-07-10 18:07:53

Have you tried updating with 'SigLevel = Required DatabaseOptional'?

nygmatic · 2013-07-10 18:11:36

That gives me a "failed to update * (invalid or corrupt database)"

nygmatic · 2013-07-10 18:15:03

Heres my pacman.conf btw

http://pastebin.com/yfqvatq3

cfr · 2013-07-11 02:04:55

nygmatic wrote:

my USB installer was created over a year ago

Why? I mean: why not use a more recent image?

Though as long as it is using the net to install, it shouldn't affect the currency of the installed system.

EDIT: As Strike0 said, you need to post the errors pacman is giving you. I assume you are not getting character-by-character output identical to that in the threads you linked to so nobody except you actually knows the actual errors you are getting. That makes it rather hard to identify the problem.

Last edited by cfr (2013-07-11 02:12:46)

Arch Linux

#1 2013-07-10 17:14:40

I broke pacman when i updated the mirrorlist

#2 2013-07-10 17:34:34

Re: I broke pacman when i updated the mirrorlist

#3 2013-07-10 17:38:38

Re: I broke pacman when i updated the mirrorlist

#4 2013-07-10 17:59:28

Re: I broke pacman when i updated the mirrorlist

#5 2013-07-10 18:04:19

Re: I broke pacman when i updated the mirrorlist

#6 2013-07-10 18:07:53

Re: I broke pacman when i updated the mirrorlist

#7 2013-07-10 18:11:36

Re: I broke pacman when i updated the mirrorlist

#8 2013-07-10 18:15:03

Re: I broke pacman when i updated the mirrorlist

#9 2013-07-11 02:04:55

Re: I broke pacman when i updated the mirrorlist

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