Install postgresql on RHEL 5.6

Question

When I try to run

yum install postgresql

I get the following error message:

Transaction Check Error:
  file /usr/lib64/libecpg.so.6.1 from install of postgresql-libs-8.4.4-2PGDG.el5.x86_64 conflicts with file from package postgresql84-libs-8.4.7-1.el5_6.1.x86_64
  file /usr/lib64/libecpg_compat.so.3.1 from install of postgresql-libs-8.4.4-2PGDG.el5.x86_64 conflicts with file from package postgresql84-libs-8.4.7-1.el5_6.1.x86_64
  file /usr/lib64/libpgtypes.so.3.1 from install of postgresql-libs-8.4.4-2PGDG.el5.x86_64 conflicts with file from package postgresql84-libs-8.4.7-1.el5_6.1.x86_64
  file /usr/lib64/libpq.so.5.2 from install of postgresql-libs-8.4.4-2PGDG.el5.x86_64 conflicts with file from package postgresql84-libs-8.4.7-1.el5_6.1.x86_64
  file /usr/share/locale/de/LC_MESSAGES/libpq5-8.4.mo from install of postgresql-libs-8.4.4-2PGDG.el5.x86_64 conflicts with file from package postgresql84-libs-8.4.7-1.el5_6.1.x86_64
  file /usr/share/locale/es/LC_MESSAGES/libpq5-8.4.mo from install of postgresql-libs-8.4.4-2PGDG.el5.x86_64 conflicts with file from package postgresql84-libs-8.4.7-1.el5_6.1.x86_64
  file /usr/share/locale/fr/LC_MESSAGES/libpq5-8.4.mo from install of postgresql-libs-8.4.4-2PGDG.el5.x86_64 conflicts with file from package postgresql84-libs-8.4.7-1.el5_6.1.x86_64
  file /usr/share/locale/ko/LC_MESSAGES/libpq5-8.4.mo from install of postgresql-libs-8.4.4-2PGDG.el5.x86_64 conflicts with file from package postgresql84-libs-8.4.7-1.el5_6.1.x86_64
  file /usr/share/locale/pt_BR/LC_MESSAGES/libpq5-8.4.mo from install of postgresql-libs-8.4.4-2PGDG.el5.x86_64 conflicts with file from package postgresql84-libs-8.4.7-1.el5_6.1.x86_64
  file /usr/share/locale/zh_CN/LC_MESSAGES/libpq5-8.4.mo from install of postgresql-libs-8.4.4-2PGDG.el5.x86_64 conflicts with file from package postgresql84-libs-8.4.7-1.el5_6.1.x86_64

Error Summary

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while I understand that there are some conflicting versions of repos (?), I cant figure out a way to resolve it.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

Answer 1

To try and explain how this might have happened, it looks like at some point you pointed your server toward the PostgreSQL Development Group (PGDG) yum repository, now hosted at http://yum.pgrpms.org/ There have been some changes to that repo that may have broken your ability to use it. Also, RedHat has now added PostgreSQL 8.4 to their own package set--you used to only be able to get 8.1 from them--so that may be what's introduced the conflict instead.

If you have any more problems here, the PostgreSQL Yum Howto might help you get an idea where the files involved here are at, and what they should look like.

Answer 2

The above output suggests that a version of postgresql is already installed, possibly from a different repo. You can confirm this by checking the output of 'yum list installed'. It would probably be best to remove this before trying to install it again.

Answer 3

Try a yum list | grep postgres and look at the output listed as "installed". If you have a version from another repo that you do not wish to continue using, you can yum erase packagename, where packagename is the name of the installed postgresql package on the system. It may also make sense to remove the additional repo, but that may not be necessary for this.

Answer 4

You try to install package postgresql-libs-8.4.4-2PGDG.el5.x86_64 and postgresql84-libs-8.4.7-1.el5_6.1.x86_64, at the same time.

This indicates, that you have incompatible repositories enabled. If it is a RHEL installation, I would recommend disabling everything but the default repositories and once again running yum install postgresql.

If you want postgresql that's newer/different than the one provided by Red Hat (warning: this makes your config unsupported), then you'd have to play a bit more with disabling some/all RH repos and enabling non-RH repositories one at a time, and run yum install postgresql. At one time you'll get combination of enabled repositories with no conflicting postgresql packages and the command will succeed.