replacing files via rpm

Joe Smith jes at martnet.com
Wed Feb 21 20:04:31 UTC 2007


Thomas Widhalm wrote:
> ...
> * I could simply create a rpm which contains the new files
> Pro: simple
> Con: get's overwritten each time the package containing the original
> files gets updated
> ...

I'm a complete idiot when it comes to understanding rpm or spec files, 
but I don't think this is quite right.

As I understand things, if your custom rpm replaces files owned by other 
rpms, and later those rpms are updated, rpm will detect that you have 
modifed the file and your custom files will either be a) saved as 
"foo.rpmsave" or b) preserved with the file from the updated rpm renamed 
to "foo.rpmnew".

I could be wrong though--maybe this only happens for files marked as 
"config" files. If so, you can design your packages to install the files 
under /usr/local and then modify the configs to use that instead of 
/usr, and then only the config files will have a conflict.

In any case, the update will not overwrite your files unless you 
specifically tell it to.

Since you have a file conflict by definition here, I think it's correct 
for _you_ to have to make a conscious decision about how to resolve each 
conflict. There's no way for rpm to guess what your priorities are.

<Joe




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