[arch-general] problem upgrading old installation

[Doug Newgard]

On Fri, 9 Oct 2020 15:30:56 +0200
Łukasz Michalski <lm at zork.pl> wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> Any idea how can I overcome this problem:
> 
> [root at nettest zork]# pacman -S -q --noconfirm archlinux-keyring
> 
> downloading required keys...
> 
> error: key "6D42BDD116E0068F" could not be looked up remotely
> error: required key missing from keyring
> error: failed to commit transaction (unexpected error)
> Errors occurred, no packages were upgraded.
> 
> root at nettest zork]# pacman-key --refresh-keys
> gpg: refreshing 113 keys from hkps://hkps.pool.sks-keyservers.net
> gpg: keyserver refresh failed: General error
> ==> ERROR: A specified local key could not be updated from a keyserver.  
> 
> I also tried:
> 
> # pacman-key --init
> # pacman-key --populate archlinux
> # pacman-key --refresh-keys
> 
> Still the same error.
> 
> I have this problem on two servers with last upate 1,5 year ago.
> 
> Thanks,
> Łukasz

If the system is more than a year old, pacman is too old to successfully update
the system anyway. I would suggest booting a recent install disk and using
pacman's --sysroot option or use pacman-static.

To get past the key error, use a working keyserver. hkps://keyserver.ubunut.com
seems to be pretty reliable.