[COLUG] Finding out which updates have been applied to a Red Hat system?

[Jim]

Peter Kukla wrote:

> Is there any way to tell at a glance what updates have
> been applied to a Red Hat 7.x system?

> They have a file listing of the
> pre-crash system which they can use for comparison.

Oh boy. 

As I re-read your post, I realize how bad the situation is. 

I think the answer to your question is no. 

With just a file listing of the pre-crash system, 
your friend needs to figure out for each file 
in the pre-crash listing: 

1. If it belonged to a package. 
2. Which package it belonged to. 
3. Which release/version of the package it was of. 

That's going to take a bunch of scripting. 
It'll also require access to all the versions of all the packages 
for that RH7.x. 

Of course, many of the files can be accounted for as being 
part of the initial installation. 

For many of the other files, one can figure out which package 
they were part of with rpm -qf. Then you can look at all the 
dates and sizes of that file in all the different versions of the package. 
If the timestamp is just the installation date, then the size might 
be more useful. 

You friend needs to get familiar with RPMs and scripting. 

   http://www.google.com/search?q=max-rpm.pdf
   rpm -qa --queryformat '[%{FILEMTIMES} %{FILEMTIMES:date} %{FILENAMES} %{=NAME}\n]'

Of course, hand editted configuration files are history. 

Of course, stuff installed outside the package system is difficult. 

> This is a system maintained by a new-to-Linux friend,
> who has inherited it from a former co-worker.

Wow, what an introduction to Linux. Good luck to your friend.