[CentOS] tinydns/djbdns opinion poll

Thu Feb 12 17:08:03 UTC 2009
Les Mikesell <lesmikesell at gmail.com>

Bill Campbell wrote:
>
>>>
>>>> locate rpmsave
>>>> locate rpmnew
>>> rpmsave is left from *un*installations, rpmnew is the *new* file, there is 
>>> no file overwritten. rpm usually doesn't overwrite files if they got 
>>> changed. 
>> AFAIK this is not correct, a package upgrade can create either of these 
>> (or both, or neither of them despite your having edited a file). And 
>> that's the way it should be, either choice can be justified.
>> It depends on the package's SPEC file. rpm just does what it's told, 
>> everything is in the hands of the package maintainer.
> 
> I think that the only time a .rpmnew file is created is if the
> SPEC file specifies ``%config(noreplace)'' for a file.  If the
> ``noreplace'' option is not used, the .rpmsave files are created
> either when a package is removed, or when a file specified as a
> configuration file in the RPM SPEC file is updated and the file
> is sufficiently different from the default (for some definition
> of suffieiently).
> 
> In the OpenPKG portable packaging system, which is RPM based, the
> presence of any .rpmnew or .rpmsave configuration files will
> prevent a package from starting, and warning messages will be
> generated until the situation is resolved.

That sounds like the kiss of death for any critical service.  Can't it 
figure out ahead of time that this is going to happen and let the 
service keep running unchanged with a warning message about needing the 
update instead?

-- 
   Les Mikesell
    lesmikesell at gmail.com