Package maintainers, listen up! 🙂
I have created a simple tool called rpmguard for checking differences between RPM packages. It is very similar to rpmdiff, but it prints only important changes, not all. Therefore it can be used every time a new package is built to easily see if something hasn’t went completely wrong.
So what can it do?
Currently rpmguard reports:
- new or removed Requires/Provides/Obsoletes/Conflicts
- lowering the version of Requires/Provides/Obsoletes/Conflicts
- new, removed or changed config file
- new or removed executable
- reduced number of documentation files
- changed user/group ownership
- changed file mode permissions
All the above-mentioned changed are considered important enough for the maintainer to have at least a quick look at them.
Let’s see it in action
Following packages must be installed:
- rpm
- rpm-python
- rpmlint (rpmdiff version 0.91 contains serious bugs, please use newer or from trunk – it’s important)
Then you run the tool simply by:
$ ./rpmguard.py package-1.rpm package-2.rpm
Example output (artificial, usually there is no ouput or just several lines):
added REQUIRES fooreq2
added REQUIRES rpmlib(VersionedDependencies) <= 3.0.3-1
removed REQUIRES fooreq1
lowered REQUIRES('= 0.3.4' -> '>= 0.2.7') fooreq3
added PROVIDES fooprov1 = 0.1.0
added CONFLICTS fooconf >= 1.0
removed OBSOLETES fooobs
added CONFIG /etc/conf2
changed CONFIG /etc/conf1
changed MODE(0644 -> 04744) /usr/share/justfile1
reduced DOCS(2 -> 1)
added EXECUTABLE /usr/bin/bin1
And now a more real-world example:
$ ./rpmguard.py kernel-2.6.31-0.86.rc3.git5.fc12.x86_64.rpm kernel-2.6.31.1-56.fc12.x86_64.rpm added REQUIRES rpmlib(PayloadIsXz) <= 5.2-1 added REQUIRES dracut >= 001-7 added REQUIRES grubby >= 7.0.4-1 removed REQUIRES mkinitrd >= 6.0.61-1
Cool, where to get it?
rpmguard is currently part of AutoQA framework, which will be used for performing various checks on Fedora packages. You can download just the rpmguard from here:
http://git.fedorahosted.org/git/autoqa.git?a=tree;f=tests/rpmguard
or rather download the whole AutoQA:
git clone git://git.fedorahosted.org/git/autoqa.git
and look into autoqa/tests/rpmguard.
Feedback welcome
Any feedback is really welcome. If you have any ideas:
- which other changes in RPMs should be reported
- which changes should not be reported
- how to adjust the program output
- what else to improve
- any other comments
please let me know under this blog or in the autoqa-devel mailing list. Thanks!
Kparal's Fedora Blog 
You are my hero for today 🙂
Kamil,
You might want to take a look at:
http://skvidal.fedorapeople.org/misc/mungingdiff.py
for handling “changes” between two rpms that are really just the result of the ver changing.
Thank you for a tool which filters the insignificant differences!
This doesn’t work because the common used doesn’t have SSH access:
git clone ssh://git.fedorahosted.org/git/autoqa.git
This does work:
git clone http://git.fedorahosted.org/git/autoqa.git
Now, the most serious missing feature:
Unlike rpmdiff, it doesn’t handle installed packages instead of files.
E.g.
rpmdiff rpmdiff evince /usr/src/redhat/RPMS/evince-2.28.1-3.fc10.pentium4.rpm
I.e. if an argument can’t be opened as a file, try using it as a package name.
Thanks for git correction, fixed (changed to git://).
As for the missing feature: rpmguard was created for the needs of autoqa, therefore I only considered the need for comparing two rpm files. But you are right, for some people it may come handy to compare installed package with an uninstalled package. I will add that to the future feature list. Thanks!