How to deal with *.rpmnew-files?

[dnutan (Marc)]

How to handle rpmnew/rpmsave files:

• Beginner hint, rpmnew and rpmsave
• Dealing with .rpmnew and .rpmsave files
• RPM, %config, and (noreplace)
• Tools assisting the user to check rpmnew/rpmsave files: rpmconf, yum-merge-conf (if not interfering with yum-cron)…

The same applies to NethServer but with some particularities because of templates:

@davidep

I know that for the .conf files built via the template system I should leave well alone and ignore the rpmnew version.

Yes it’s right. The e-smith template expansion also removes the corresponding .rpmnew and .rpmsave file.

However, a template expansion is triggered by a “nethserver-something” package update. If just “something” is updated the .rpmnew is left in place.

In old e-smith based systems the template expansion was triggered also by a system boot, so .rpmnew files were cleaned up more frequently.

@capote

warning: /etc/logrotate.d/suricata created as /etc/logrotate.d/suricata.rpmnew
warning: /etc/suricata/suricata.yaml created as /etc/suricata/suricata.yaml.rpmnew

Both files (without the .rpmnew in the name) are generated from e-smith templates. So, in principle you can discard/remove their .rpmnew counterparts (if not done by the update). But checking differences doesn’t hurt (in case some new setting is missing on the templates, and therefore would be advisable to raise a bug report).