Verifying inode number using rpm and ls

[Panu Matilainen]

On Sat, 13 Dec 2008, John Horne wrote:
> [Apologies for cross-posting from the opensuse list]
>
> Hello,
>
> I was wondering if someone could tell me why there is a difference in
> the reported inode number of a file from the 'ls' command, and from the
> 'rpm' command. For example, using the /usr/bin/wget file, I get:
>
>         ls -i /usr/bin/wget
>         365523 /usr/bin/wget
>
>         rpm -qf --qf '[%{FILEINODES}:%{FILENAMES}\n]' /usr/bin/wget|
> grep ':/usr/bin/wget$'
>         157816006:/usr/bin/wget
>
> I realise that prelinking will cause the inode number to change, but
> even without prelinking the numbers reported are not the same.
>
> Surely the rpm package manager database will report the inode number of
> the installed file. Running 'rpm -Vf /usr/bin/wget' verifies the file as
> okay, although as far as I am aware rpm verification does not include
> testing the inode number.

Hysterical as it is, the inode numbers in packages are from the host used 
to build the package so they'll never match what you have installed. The 
inode numbers in packages are only used for rpm internal hardlink 
handling.

 	- Panu -