On Mar 29, 10:19am, Michael Bryan wrote:
>
>The way HP-UX does it is to compare the various configuration files
>against known previous versions.  If the file is a "known" version,
>then it has not been modified by the site, and is replaced
>automatically during the upgrade.  If it isn't a known version, it is
>assumed that the user has some custom modifications, and the file is
>left as it is.  A message is also logged in the upgrade log file
>(/tmp/update.log), indicating that the file should be updated
>manually.  In either case, the new versions of all these files are
>placed into the directory /etc/newconfig, so that the sysadmin can
>peruse the new files at some point, and apply the upgrades manually.
>This happens for the expected files in /etc, as well as many other
>config files, such as /usr/lib/uucp/Systems, various X11 startup
>files, etc.

SGI does much the same thing, except in the handling of modified files.
If the file is important to correct system operation, the old one is
renamed to <fname>.O and the new one installed.  If not, the new one is
installed as <fname>.N.  A `versions changed` will tell you which files
have new versions.

~Steve


-- 
Steven R. Allen - wormey@eskimo.com
Don't knock President Fillmore.  He kept us out of Vietnam.

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