RedHat Enterprise Linux 3 (RHEL3), Update 4, in certain cases breaks your Plesk 7.1.6 installation. When you attempt to login you might get the following error message:
Unable to exec utility packagemng: packagemng: Unable to open rpm db: cannot
open Packages using index db3 (-30982)
System error 2: No such file or directory
Below is my WORKAROUND for the problem, until a permanent solution can be found.
I have edited my /etc/sysconfig/rhn/up2date file so that the pkgSkipList entry reads as follows: pkgSkipList=kernel*;rpm*;.
up2date will now, no longer upgrade the rpm system.
If you have already upgraded your rpm system, you could run the following commands:
up2date --get rpm-4.2.3-10 rpm-python-4.2.3-10 rpm-build-4.2.3-10 rpm-devel-4.2.3-10 rpm-libs-4.2.3-10
cd /var/spool/up2date/
rpm -Uvh --oldpackage rpm-4.2.3-10.i386.rpm rpm-build-4.2.3-10.i386.rpm rpm-devel-4.2.3-10.i386.rpm rpm-libs-4.2.3-10.i386.rpm rpm-python-4.2.3-10.i386.rpm
rm /var/lib/rpm/__db.00*
The above commands should get you up and running with the older rpm system.
RedHat did release the updated rpm system, due to a bug, as explained by in this Errata.