Bug#187019: more than md5 verification for dpkg [Was: dpkg versus rpm: rpm has --verify]
Now that I'm a bit more comfortable with debian, I come back to my old
idea :)
More than md5 information (I agree, I can have that with debsums), rpm
keeps informations about rights, ownership, and modification date of
files (except file generated by postinst scripts, of course).
example applications:
If I had information in the database on what right the file had when it
was installed, I could repair a broken package, and even a whole system
damaged by a wrong manipulation of chmod (chmod 700 /* for instance).
If I had information about modification date, I could know wether a
package has been manually altered after installation, say, by changing a
binary file.
This can happen when you need something package currently does not
provide. If you start maintainig a system you didn't install or didn't
maintained before, this information is more than valuable. You know that
you should be careful with "iproute" package because "tc" binary is not
the one that shipped with the package (replaced by friend or foe)
I had in mind to create a script that could analyze and possibly repair
(by modifying rigths/ownership or reinstalling package) a package list,
using debsums for retrieving md5 if necessary; but I was frustrated to
discover that nothing in the package database currently give me this
information.
This "apt-recover" could work by populating a database on a virtual
system that install every new package (and eventually remove it after
having gathered information it needs), but this would be so neat if we
had permissions/ownership/date for every file in the package, not just
for "dpkg-statoverrided" files. even just permission/ownership would be
great.
The inpact on disk space should not be very sensible. The inpact on
installation time could be, if this information was gathered during
install. If so, we could build this along the package.
Do you think there would be an heavy inpact on dpkg functions if this
information where added, in a file that could look like .md5sums file ?
Would it be best to add this at installation or build time ?
Best regards, and please forgive my poor english ;)
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