RPM中已更改文件的列表

Question

I wonder, if there is a way to do the following: I have rpmA-v1 installed on the system. It has a lot of config files which user can edit for their purposes. Then, I want to install new version of rpmA, say, rpmA-v2 and before installing it I want to back up those config files, which were edited, not to edit config files one more time.

Is there any way to know which files were edited in such a situation?

Answer 1

If you are talking about config files related to given package, rpm already has pretty robust mechanism for this known as .rpmnew / .rpmsave .

If package is being upgraded, at the discretion of package creator/maintainer there are 2 possible actions that may be taken by rpm :

1. Old config is preserved intact say at /etc/myprog/config , and new one is installed right next to it as /etc/myprog/config.rpmnew . Presence of *.rpmnew file typically means that old config was NOT edited.
2. Old config is renamed to /etc/myprog/config.rpmsave , and new one is installed as /etc/myprog/config (replacing old one). New config may be completely fresh (vanilla) or it may incorporate settings inherited from old, .rpmsave 'd version. Presence of *.rpmsave files is pretty robust sign that config files were actually edited by rpm .

Typically, after upgrading of one or more packages (or the whole system) it is recommended to search for all .rpmnew / .rpmsave files using command like

find /etc -name "*.rpmsave" -or -name "*.rpmnew"

and carefuly inspect all configs against their .rpmnew / .rpmsave versions (if they are around) to make sure that settings are correct. You can use diff -u to see text diffs or meld for graphical diff/merge.

Answer 2

@mvp has provided a good way to determine changed config files - provided they are marked as such.

If they aren't, you can/should verify the installed package with rpm -V packagename in order to display any changed files.