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

[Jim]

Dane Miller wrote:

> 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.
> 
> Does rpm keep a package cache in /var/cache like debian does when using
> apt? 

I see /var/log/rpmpkgs* files and 
I see /var/lib/rpm directory with 15 (Berkeley DB files) files. 
The interesting information is _inside_ those files, 
so a directory listing of them doesn't help. 

Peter's friend has a quite difficult job of trying to figure 
out which packages need to be installed, and which version of 
those packages is needed. We don't even know if the file listing 
is just file names, or has dates and times also. 

Peter, is there any more information?