[CentOS] Aide questions

Thu Dec 31 18:54:28 UTC 2009
Steve Campbell <campbell at cnpapers.com>

I've got aide aide-0.13.1-4.el5 running on a server, and aide 
aide-0.13.1-2.0.4.el5 running on a similar server. There appears to have 
been a change in the way base directories are being monitored in the two 
versions. Both servers are running logical volumes, but it seems to not 
matter as I'm running aide on a server without logical volumes and the 
problem still shows up. Now the problem....

On the server with the newer aide, it reports MTime and CTime changes in 
some of the base directories such as:

Directory: /root
  Mtime    : 2009-12-18 09:14:02              , 2009-12-24 12:20:53
  Ctime    : 2009-12-18 09:14:02              , 2009-12-24 12:20:53


Directory: /usr/bin
  Mtime    : 2009-12-18 00:04:20              , 2009-12-31 00:05:08
  Ctime    : 2009-12-18 00:04:20              , 2009-12-31 00:05:08

The older version of aide doesn't do this. Both aide.conf files are identical. I've tried entries in the conf file like the following to avoid this, but it seems I shouldn't have to do this:

/usr/bin$ DIR

where I've redefined DIR to not include "m" and "c". I still get reports of files below /usr/bin, but this avoids the changes to the directory itself everyday.

Does anyone have a clue how to avoid this any other way, and maybe if aide is doing this differently now (and why)? It's not a big deal, but I'm kinda believing I'm not doing it the right way.

Thanks

steve campbell