On Fri, Jun 3, 2011 at 8:47 PM, Gilberto Ficara <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Hello everyone,
>
> I'm not familiar with rpm internals, but I was toying with the rpm
> command and found out that it seems to be skipping some files in the
> --verify action, for example it didn't check /etc/hosts and passwd:
>
> [root@sltest02 ~]# echo '# some comment' >> /etc/hosts
> [root@sltest02 ~]# echo '# some comment' >> /etc/hosts.allow
> [root@sltest02 ~]# echo '# some comment' >> /etc/bashrc
> [root@sltest02 ~]# useradd -m foobar
> [root@sltest02 ~]# sync
>
> [root@sltest02 ~]# grep foobar /etc/passwd
> foobar:x:500:500::/home/foobar:/bin/bash
>
> [root@sltest02 ~]# rpm --verify setup
> S.5....T.  c /etc/bashrc
> S.5....T.  c /etc/hosts.allow
>
> [root@sltest02 ~]# rpm -v --verify setup | grep passwd
> .........  c /etc/passwd
>
> [root@sltest02 ~]# rpm -v --verify setup | grep hosts
> .........  c /etc/hosts
> S.5....T.  c /etc/hosts.allow
> .........  c /etc/hosts.deny
>
> seems like /etc/hosts and /etc/passwd are not being checked, is this
> normal? I made the same test on CentOS 5.6 and it seems that passwd is
> not being checked there too (/etc/hosts is not part of the setup package).

Those are "configuration" files, and marked as such in the RPM's that
provide them. As such, they're permitted to be modified without
tripping verification reports. If they weren't every time you changed
your network settings or added a package with a dedicated user, you'd
wind up breaking the RPM verification reports.


> some infos on my test system: rpm-4.8.0-12.el6.x86_64,
> rpm-libs-4.8.0-12.el6.x86_64
> linux kernel 2.6.32-71.29.1.el6.x86_64
>
> thanks in advance for any info or advice :)
>
> Gilberto "Velenux" Ficara
>