Re: Conffiles and Configuration files (again)
remco@blaakmeer.student.utwente.nl (Remco Blaakmeer) wrote on 07.04.98 in <[🔎] Pine.LNX.3.96.980407175324.19696A-100000@blaakmeer.student.utwente.nl>:
> This behaviour will not change,
> because it is very impractical to make every file in the packaging system
> a conffile (think about calculating an md5sum for every file in a package
> on a slow system).
Actually, it would be very good to have this at least as an option.
Sure, md5 is slow. So how about having something simpler?
The important part, IMHO, is to catch cases where the sysadmin has changed
stuff, for whatever reason. This is not about security audits or similar
stuff.
So, an easy way would seem to be to simply stat() every file on install,
and on remove/overwrite, check for significant differences in stat()
results, and warn if you find any. Sounds pretty low overhead, and would
still catch the vast majority of problems.
Incidentally, also warn on overwrite of a file not in the database at all.
I could envision something like
Warning: changed files detected:
/usr/bin/somescript
/usr/doc/somedoc
Warning: attempt to overwrite file that belongs to no package:
/usr/bin/somecommand
Ignore or save? [I/S]
(There are, of course, other ways to react to this.)
MfG Kai
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