backup systems. (Use Amanda!!)

[warlord at MIT.EDU (Derek Atkins)]

Derek Martin <blu at sophic.org> writes:

> On Fri, Apr 11, 2003 at 12:05:38PM -0400, Derek Atkins wrote:
> > > On the other hand, simply excluding /bin, /usr, /lib, /dev, /proc, and 
> > > whatnot, is certainly easier. When you exclude /usr, though, you'd want 
> > > to make sure to re-include /usr/local. 
> > 
> > The problem is that sometimes I _do_ modify rpm-installed binaries
> > (for one reason or another).  So I don't want to just out-right
> > exclude /bin, /sbin, /usr, or /lib.
> 
> So, don't do that.  Either remove the RPM (if that's a practical

Easy for you to say, but not always possible/practical.  See below.

> option), or remove the individual original file, and then put the
> modified version in /usr/local, or some other convenient
> non-RPM-managed location (i.e. nfs mount).  If you're going to use
> RPM, there's little point if you're not going to be consistent.  To do
> otherwise just makes your life harder, as (I think) is clearly
> demonstrated by this example.

Not really.  For example one time I submitted a patch to an
RPM-installed file (which was later accepted).  I planned to upgrade
the RPM anyways once the patch was accepted, but didn't want to put
the system in a state where the upgrade would fail.

Also, not all modified files are necessarily executables -- sometimes
they are ancillary scripts, configuration data, etc -- and those
locations are hard-coded into existing binaries.  Are you suggesting I
mv the file and replace it with a symlink?  That would be just as
problematic (if not moreso).

-derek

-- 
       Derek Atkins, SB '93 MIT EE, SM '95 MIT Media Laboratory
       Member, MIT Student Information Processing Board  (SIPB)
       URL: http://web.mit.edu/warlord/    PP-ASEL-IA     N1NWH
       warlord at MIT.EDU                        PGP key available