[LAU] [OT] Debian reinstall...?

[James Cameron]

On Sat, Jul 04, 2009 at 01:22:16AM -1000, Joel Roth wrote:
> This looks interesting, but has some requirements my system
> doesn't seem to meet:
> 
> 	debsums -s
> 	debsums: no md5sums for at
> 	debsums: no md5sums for binutils
> 	debsums: no md5sums for bzip2
> 	debsums: no md5sums for cdda2wav
> 	...

You'll get this if the /var/lib/dpkg/info/$PACKAGENAME.md5sums file for
the package is missing.  This might be caused by either very old
packages, or missing files in /var/lib/dpkg/info ... You might try
reinstalling the package.  The command

	debsums --list-missing

will show you which packages have no md5sums file.  I've detected a few
just now, and they turned out to be old packages no longer available.

debsums is also potentially useful for detecting simplistic replacement
of files that may have been done maliciously.  Which is another way of
saying that if you are intending to be malicious you might also re-write
the md5sums file as well.  ;-(

-- 
James Cameron    mailto:quozl at us.netrek.org     http://quozl.netrek.org/