[TriLUG] rpm database question

[Tanner Lovelace]

Jon Carnes wrote:

>>		Production Boxes:
>>		   _Nothing_ goes on the box that isnt an RPM.
>>
>>
> You have got to be kidding me...  You mean you wait for an RPM fix when 
> there is a vulnerability announced?
> 
> All my main servers have their main software installed via tarball.  For my 
> mail servers that's Sendmail, for DNS it's Bind, for my main Fileserver 
> it's Samba.  In fact, I can't think of a major process on a server that I 
> haven't installed from Tarball...
> 
> All my servers run well and are secure.
> 
> I also play a little fast and loose on my workstation at home, but I've 
> never *not* been able to force an rpm to install... and if it ever 
> happened, I always know where to find the latest source.
> 
> It's just my opinion, but I think of RPM installs as being somewhat generic 
> - an attempt at one-size fits all.  Linux is tough enough that most times 
> that works out just fine, but I like to get that extra edge of really 
> installing the app or service to match my environment and my companies 
> needs.
> 
> It is a strategy that has worked extremely well for the last 4 years.


But, that doesn't mean it can't be improved. :-)  RPMs from
distributions are probably like you describe.  That doesn't mean,
however, that rpms cannot be customized.  I run Mandrake on my
server, but I have switched out the default postfix mail server
with a qmail rpm that I have seriously customized.  The advantage
this gives me is that if I ever forget what I did, I can look at
the rpm changelog, or the patch files in the source rpm.  This comes
in very handy when upgrading to a new distribution (as I did when
after running Mandrake 7.0 for almost 2 years I finally updated
to Mandrake 8.0 [obviously before 8.1 came out]).  If I had installed
qmail from a tar.gz. file, I would have never been able to remember
every little thing I did.

Tanner
-- 
Tanner Lovelace | lovelace at wayfarer.org | http://wtl.wayfarer.org/
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