On Sat, Jan 24, 2009 at 13:01:13 -0500, Gerry Reno <greno(a)verizon.net&gt; wrote: > Does anyone know of a way to find the differences between an > installation and its original RPM? > rpm -V will tell you about installed files that don't match what was in the rpm. This doesn't handle files created by install scripts, but only a few things create files in install scripts.

Gerry Reno wrote: > Bruno Wolff III wrote: >> On Sat, Jan 24, 2009 at 13:01:13 -0500, >> Gerry Reno <greno(a)verizon.net&gt; wrote: >> >>> Does anyone know of a way to find the differences between an >>> installation and its original RPM? >>> >> >> rpm -V will tell you about installed files that don't match what was in >> the rpm. This doesn't handle files created by install scripts, but only >> a few things create files in install scripts. >> >> > Ok, that sort of works to get some information about which files have > some changes. It doesn't show any new files that may have been added > to the installation though. > How would it know?

On Sat, Jan 24, 2009 at 13:22:02 -0500, Gerry Reno <greno(a)verizon.net&gt; wrote: > Well, what I was hoping was that there was a tool that could install the > original RPM into a sandbox and then compare the differences between the > sandbox install and the existing installation and report the differences. > The problem that I'm trying to solve is inevitably we make changes to > installations due to many reasons; bug fixes, config changes, security > patches, etc. Then when we want to upgrade to a later version of that > installation we don't always know exactly what has been changed in the > installation since we first installed it. I looking for a way to see > all changes in the installation, whether to original files or newly > added files, as compared to the original RPM.

Bruno Wolff III wrote: > On Sat, Jan 24, 2009 at 13:22:02 -0500, > Gerry Reno <greno(a)verizon.net&gt; wrote: >> Well, what I was hoping was that there was a tool that could install >> the original RPM into a sandbox and then compare the differences >> between the sandbox install and the existing installation and >> report the differences. >> The problem that I'm trying to solve is inevitably we make changes >> to installations due to many reasons; bug fixes, config changes, >> security patches, etc. Then when we want to upgrade to a later >> version of that installation we don't always know exactly what has >> been changed in the installation since we first installed it. I >> looking for a way to see all changes in the installation, whether >> to original files or newly added files, as compared to the original >> RPM. You may simply want to write a script to do this comparison, or dump the contents of those 2 commands : # rpm -ql yourpackage > file1 # rpm -ql yourpackage.xxx.rpm > file2

and compare the 2 outputs with a tool like 'meld' or with emacs If you want to install an RPM file into a sandbox, that's easily done with : # rpm2cpio foo.rpm | cpio -id

Ok, that sort of works to get some information about which files have some changes. It doesn't show any new files that may have been added to the installation though.