Re: [Announce] New cryptoapi RPM packages for Mandrake 8.1

[Michel Bouissou <michel@bouissou.net>]

Le Mercredi 26 Septembre 2001 18:59, vous avez écrit :
> Mr. Bouissou:
>
>             Never mind! Boy did I make a mistake. I realized your directory
> structure, and have also found the README. Now I am clear on it, and have
> downloaded it all.

Yes, I hope the README answered the questions you asked in your 2 previous 
messages.

>             - Make a backup copy of the following files, in case you would
> need them back:
>             - /sbin/losetup
>             - /bin/mount
>             - /bin/umount
>
>         Correct me if I am wrong, but I think if an RPM is built with that
> in mind, the RPM can actually make the backups for you in a more automated
> manner, no? This way the RPM installation would create the backups leaving
> less room for mistakes on installation.

RPMs usually makes backups only for configuration files, which may be 
user-modified, but not for binary files, which aren't supposed to change.

Should you have a problem with a non-working binary when you install a RPM, 
you would only need to "downgrade" to the RPM from your original distro to 
solve the problem.

But, Oooops! What about mount ?

mount is absolutely necessary to be able to mount your filesystems, and, if 
you have a problem with your "current" mount, you might be unable to mount 
the filesystem (possibly CD-Rom) on which resides the RPM you'd need to 
downgrade...

So, the choice of manually copying your "original" mount in the same 
directory, to another name (i.e. mount-original) protects you, because if 
ever your new "mount" fails, you still can directly use "mount-original" 
instead...

It's quite improbable that you might encounter a problem with this patched 
mount version anyway, but I found it preferable to be careful with this.

Hope this helps.

Best regards.

-- 
michel@bouissou.net
OpenPGP DH/DSS ID 0x5C2BEE8F
Si vous préférez que votre e-mail privé reste... privé.
Utilisez GnuPG: http://www.geocities.com/openpgp

Linux-crypto:  cryptography in and on the Linux system
Archive:       http://mail.nl.linux.org/linux-crypto/