Re: System integrity verification and other delusions

[Mate Wierdl]

   Sam writes:
   > In a sitution like this, you just *don't* ship a binary package that,
   > after it's installed, it scribbles all over its binary files.
   
   sendmail's /etc/aliases.db is a security-critical binary file created
   from user-supplied configuration data.
   
   How, pray tell, are you going to check the integrity of /etc/aliases.db?
   If you can verify /etc/aliases.db, why can't you verify the qmail files?

Well, some files are treated as config files (so they are expected to
be modified), but apparently RH treats aliases.db in a special way:
from the sendmail spec file (used to create the binary distribution) I
see

%config /etc/aliases 
%ghost /etc/aliases.db

What is %ghost ?  A germ of hope?

Mate