Stephen John Smoogen wrote (3/14/2007 2:25 PM):
> Ok I can't explain why this program got changed.. but the other files
> were probably changed with the prelink command that alters the ld
> library to speed up execution. The way to check what has really
> changed on your system will be with the RPM command: rpm -Va. Rpm has
> the logic to check the checksums of the file taking into account
> prelink.
That's very helpful, thanks very much.  I actually didn't know about 
prelink, and if I had, I wouldn't have realized anything would be 
running prelink for me automatically.  That reassures me about the binaries.

rpm -Va produced a lot of output, but none of it relevant to the perl 
library or binary.  Asking rpm to check just the files of interest found 
no problem with them:

[root@neutrino ~]# rpm -V --file /usr/lib/perl5/5.8.5/IO/Socket/INET.pm
[root@neutrino ~]# rpm -V --file /usr/bin/perl

In desperation, I did a "yum update --obsoletes", and now the 
/usr/lib/perl5/5.8.5/IO/Socket/INET.pm file is fixed! 

Well, maybe my rpm situation is messed up, but I still don't understand 
what provoked the event at 4:15 AM last night, and I don't understand 
what about "yum update --obsoletes" fixed it.  The only package with 
"perl" in its name that it touched was "perl-Term-ReadKey.i386 
2.30-2.2.el4.rf", and it doesn't include .../INET.pm as one of the files 
it cares about. 

Usually I can understand things, and it gives me an uncomfortable 
feeling not to, so if anyone knows more, please tell...

       Cheers,
          -Glenn.