Why does yum or up2date or rhnreg_ks terminate with error 'Could not determine what version of Red Hat Linux you are running' on Red Hat Enterprise Linux?

Environment

• Red Hat Enterpirse Linux 5
• Red Hat Enterpirse Linux 4
• Red Hat Enterpirse Linux 3

Issue

• Why does yum or up2date terminate with error 'Could not determine what version of Red Hat Linux you are running' on Red Hat Enterprise Linux?

    $ yum repolist 
    Loaded plugins: changelog, downloadonly, kmod, protectbase, rhnplugin, security, versionlock 
    rpmdb: Lock table is out of available locker entries 
    rpmdb: Unknown locker ID: d296 
    error: db4 error(22) from db->close: Invalid argument 
    error: cannot open Providename index using db3 - Cannot allocate memory (12) 
    rpmdb: Lock table is out of available locker entries 
    rpmdb: Unknown locker ID: d299 
    error: db4 error(22) from db->close: Invalid argument 
    Traceback (most recent call last): 
      File "/usr/bin/yum", line 29, in ? 
        yummain.user_main(sys.argv[1:], exit_code=True) 
      File "/usr/share/yum-cli/yummain.py", line 309, in user_main 
        errcode = main(args) 
      File "/usr/share/yum-cli/yummain.py", line 157, in main 
        base.getOptionsConfig(args) 
      File "/usr/share/yum-cli/cli.py", line 187, in getOptionsConfig 
        self.conf 
      File "/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/yum/__init__.py", line 664, in <lambda> 
        conf = property(fget=lambda self: self._getConfig(), 
      File "/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/yum/__init__.py", line 253, in _getConfig 
        self.plugins.run('init') 
      File "/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/yum/plugins.py", line 179, in run 
        func(conduitcls(self, self.base, conf, **kwargs)) 
      File "/usr/lib/yum-plugins/rhnplugin.py", line 111, in init_hook 
        login_info = up2dateAuth.getLoginInfo() 
      File "/usr/share/rhn/up2date_client/up2dateAuth.py", line 217, in getLoginInfo 
        login() 
      File "/usr/share/rhn/up2date_client/up2dateAuth.py", line 181, in login 
        maybeUpdateVersion() 
      File "/usr/share/rhn/up2date_client/up2dateAuth.py", line 45, in maybeUpdateVersion 
        systemVer = up2dateUtils.getVersion() 
      File "/usr/share/rhn/up2date_client/up2dateUtils.py", line 46, in getVersion 
        os_release, version, release = _getOSVersionAndRelease() 
      File "/usr/share/rhn/up2date_client/up2dateUtils.py", line 36, in _getOSVersionAndRelease 
        raise up2dateErrors.RpmError( 
    up2date_client.up2dateErrors.RpmError: RPM error.  The message was: 
    Could not determine what version of Red Hat Linux you are running. 
    If you get this error, try running  
     
              rpm --rebuilddb 
  

• rhn register command against satellite server fails with the message below

    $ rhnreg_ks 
    
    An error has occurred: 
    Could not determine what version of Red Hat Linux you are running. 
    If you get this error, try running 
    rpm --rebuilddb 
  

• Attempting to apply updates using the Gnome Updater applet and am receiving the following error:

    $ Component: pirut
      Summary: TB008f8aa3 up2dateUtils.py:36:_getOSVersionAndRelease:RpmError: Could not determine what version of Red Hat Linux you are running.
      If you get this error, try running  
  
    rpm --rebuilddb
  

Resolution

• This most likely indicates rpm database corruption. Rebuild rpm database, as described in How to rebuild my RPM database?

• If the above does not resolve the error, verify if the redhat-release package is installed as shown below

    $ cat /etc/redhat-release
    Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server release 5.6 (Tikanga)
    $ rpm -q redhat-release
    redhat-release-5Server-5.6.0.3
  

• If the above fails with package redhat-release is not installed message, then download the latest version of this package from the appropriate base channel on Red Hat Network(RHN), and install it with the following command

    $ rpm -q redhat-release
    package redhat-release is not installed
    
    $ rpm -Uvh /path/to/redhat/release/package/from/appropriate/channel
  

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