Re: How to handle file transformations after install.

[Jeff Johnson <jbj redhat com>]

On Wed, Jul 10, 2002 at 12:09:06PM -0700, Kumar Srinivasan wrote:
> Hello All,
> 
> In rpm how does one handle file transformation which occurs in the
> %post, therefore
> rendering the file to be something different, than what we started with
> ?

The answer is brutally simple:
	Files modified by %post et al scriptlets will fail to verify.

There is a %verifyscript tag scriptlet, little used for historical reasons,
that was intended to be used to verify files generated or otherwise modified
by %post scriptlets, but I don't believe that %verifyscript is a sufficiently
general solution.

> 
> For example:
> When I build the rpm the file is
> %files
> product/lib/foo.pack
> 
> %post
> transform.exe  foo.pack foo.jar
> rm -rf  transform.exe foo.pack
> 
> 1. foo.pack and transform.exe  dont exist, hence  rpm -V will complain,
> verification should be suppressed.
> 2. Optional  foo.jar should be verified.
> 3. While rpm -e will complain  about 1.
> 
> There are couple workarounds thus far.
> 1. start with foo.jar and in %post rename foo.jar to foo.pack and
> transfrom foo.pack foo.jar
> 2. use %config(missingok) product/lib/foo.pack
> 
> It looks like rpm needs something like installf(1M) and removef(1M) as
> implemented in the SVID Packaging.

Maybe, maybe not. I'd suggest an alternative approach might be to permit
data in installed headers (in this case a transformed file's MD5 sum) to be
altered by controlled and "trusted" tools. Dunno, we'll see.

73 de Jeff

-- 
Jeff Johnson	ARS N3NPQ
jbj@redhat.com (jbj@jbj.org)
Chapel Hill, NC