On Thu, 20 Nov 2008, Joe Barjo wrote:
But my real question is: How can I get a list of files in the whole filesystem that were added or modified compared to all the files that come from rpms? Is there a script for doing such a thing?
You may be interested in a tool I wrote some time ago that makes a hardware and software snapshot of a system, including the latent configuration in memory (like routing information or firewall rules).
It creates the snapshots in single compressed text files periodically (hourly, daily, weekly, monthly from cron) that can be diffed. And it allows to send out diffs to one or more email-addresses if configured to do so.
It was written with multiple use cases in mind:
- compare identical systems (eg. nodes in a cluster, or when migrating servers)
- mail changes to a group of co-maintaining sysadmins (so configuration changes are communicated and if needed acted upon)
- backing up a complete system's HW/SW configuration and making diffs with past configurations for troubleshooting problems
- taking system configurations with you (as a consultant or support organisation it is nice to follow-up on system changes made by the customer)
The tool is called dconf. You can find it in RPMforge.
The tool is as good as its configuration. The default configuration already contains a lot for RHEL/CentOS, but it could use more people defining more tools/configuration file. And I am open for improving the tool beyond what it does now.
Feedback appreciated,