Are you stuck with the RPM Error Unpacking of Archive Failed on File? We can help you.

Usually, the error message occurs when the system fails to install the RPM command.

At Bobcares, we often get requests regarding RPM errors, as a part of our Server Management Services.

Today, let’s see how our Support Engineers fix the RPM error for our customers.

Explore more about RPM

RPM is the Red Hat Package Manager. To install packages under Linux systems we use RPM. The RPM package contains an arbitrary set of files like binary RPMs and source RPMs.

The source RPMs build the binary package and the binary RPMs is the compiled version of some software.

To install, upgrade or remove the programs on the Linux system, we use rpm command.

How to fix RPM Error Unpacking of Archive Failed on File?

Recently, one of our customers approached us with the same error. Now, let’s discuss how our Support Engineers fix the error for our customers.

Read Failed Error

The cpio is an archive utility and the cpio: read failed error means that the installing package is corrupt.

To fix the error our Support Engineers follow the below steps.

1. Initially, we download the package from a reliable source.

2. Then we compare the size and md5sum of the RPM copy on the system.

ls -l [rpm]

md5sum [rpm]

If there is a difference in the checksum then we do a fresh download of the RPM package from the reliable source.

Here we use the wget command to download the package file directly to the server.

Open Failed Error

Another customer approached us saying that he is getting an open fail error while installing the package using rpm command.

error: unpacking of archive failed on file /xxx/xxx/xxx: cpio: open Failed:

This error occurs if an attribute is set on the directory.

So, we use the lsattr command to check if an attribute is set on the directory.

[root@server ~]# lsattr file
----i----------- file

The i indicates that the attribute is set for the file. So that we cannot alter, rename or delete the file. To fix the error, we remove the immutable bit by using the ‘chattr’ command.

After removing the attribute bit we successfully installed the RPM package. But in some cases removing the attribute bit not fixes the error.

The reason is that the RPM file is corrupt. In such cases, we download the package again to fix the unpacking of archive error.

[Need assistance to fix RPM error? – We’ll help you.]

Conclusion

In short, today we discussed in detail on RPM Error Unpacking of Archive Failed on File and saw how our Support Engineers find the fix for this error.