pam update and /etc/pam.d/system-auth question

Sam Varshavchik mrsam at courier-mta.com
Wed Jan 3 03:21:05 UTC 2007


Mail List writes:

> 
>    Stock fc6 install - after an update of pam I now have in /etc/pam.d:
> 
> 4 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  14 Nov  4 12:32 system-auth -> system-auth-ac
> 8 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 844 Nov  4 12:32 system-auth-ac
> 4 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 683 Dec 22 16:49 system-auth.rpmnew
> 
> Should system-auth.rpmnew have replaced system-auth-ac or not?
> The changelog does not clarify this for me...

The behavior of configuration files is up to the package to define.  Here, 
the updated system-auth file would replace the existing one only if it was 
not changed from the older package's default; otherwise it gets installed 
as rpmnew.

The line of thinking here is that if you customized this configuration file, 
your custom changes should not be gratuitously overwritten by an update. 
Once you've modified something as fundamental as authentication, you are 
responsible for maintaining the configuration file to reflect any changes 
required by the newer/updated version of the package.


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