Re: Tracking changes made by installation of software
MallarJ@aol.com:
...
> allows admins to prevent users from making incorrect modifications where
> they shouldn't be.
Why aren't you setting permissions appropriately?
Unlike MS DOS / Win, in Linux you can set files to be read-only to ordinary
users, or invisible altogether (inaccessible directories).
For example, by default, most of the files in the /etc directory can only
be changed by the admin(s), and the /etc/ppp directory is inaccessible (if
memory serves).
> The reason I can't use this package is that it doesn't show you what was
> changed in a given file, just that it was changed.
If you have an archived copy of the file, can't you just diff(1) to find
out how it changed?
> In order to be able to back out installations (if I need to), I need to
> know what changes were made to my config files.
Hmm, you should be able to install most packages as an ordinary users to
try them out; said user wouldn't have access to system configuration files.
If you are worried about your own files, and it's your system, it's no
trouble to create a sacrificial account just for the trial.
> instmon
>
> This is a great script, and almost accomplishes what I need, except for
> one thing - it doesn't track files added or deleted. The author says
> that that functionality would require additional scans of the disk, and
> would slow the process down. Unfortunately, that's exactly what I need.
For files added/deleted, you could always run `tree -fi', store the output
in a file, then run it again and compare with diff.
(For more flexibility, use find, it'll let you prune branches and things.)
> So, unless anyone else has any ideas, I'm off to start writing my first
> Linux program. I've written something similar to this for my Win/Dos
> machine, but am starting fresh on coding for a Linux system. I'll get
> back to you when I have a working version.
Actually, a simple version shouldn't be difficult at all - if you start
with the `find and diff' idea, but put a checksum next to each of the
files, then you'll have a list of files added, files removed and files
changed. For the changed files, you compare them with an archive version
using diff again.
Jiri
--
<jiri@baum.com.au>
We'll know the future has arrived when every mailer transparently
quotes lines that begin with "From ", but no-one remembers why.
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