Bug 9878

Summary: rpm -Va reports files missing even though they are there
Product: [Retired] Red Hat Linux Reporter: Stephen Rasku <redhat>
Component: rpmAssignee: Jeff Johnson <jbj>
Status: CLOSED WONTFIX QA Contact:
Severity: medium Docs Contact:
Priority: medium    
Version: 6.0   
Target Milestone: ---   
Target Release: ---   
Hardware: i386   
OS: Linux   
Whiteboard:
Fixed In Version: Doc Type: Bug Fix
Doc Text:
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Clone Of: Environment:
Last Closed: 2000-03-01 07:14:49 UTC Type: ---
Regression: --- Mount Type: ---
Documentation: --- CRM:
Verified Versions: Category: ---
oVirt Team: --- RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
Cloudforms Team: --- Target Upstream Version:
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Description Stephen Rasku 2000-03-01 07:14:49 UTC
For example, rpm reports:

missing    /usr/doc/lesstif-0.89.4/AUTHORS
missing    /usr/doc/lesstif-0.89.4/BUG-REPORTING
missing    /usr/doc/lesstif-0.89.4/COPYING
missing    /usr/doc/lesstif-0.89.4/COPYING.LIB
missing    /usr/doc/lesstif-0.89.4/CREDITS
missing    /usr/doc/lesstif-0.89.4/CURRENT_NOTES
missing    /usr/doc/lesstif-0.89.4/ChangeLog
missing    /usr/doc/lesstif-0.89.4/FAQ
missing    /usr/doc/lesstif-0.89.4/KNOWN_BUGS
missing    /usr/doc/lesstif-0.89.4/NEWS
missing    /usr/doc/lesstif-0.89.4/NOTES
missing    /usr/doc/lesstif-0.89.4/README
missing    /usr/doc/lesstif-0.89.4/RELEASE-POLICY
missing    /usr/doc/lesstif-0.89.4/TODO
missing    /usr/doc/lesstif-0.89.4/example.motifbind
missing    /usr/doc/lesstif-0.89.4/motifbind.sun+linux

However:

ls /usr/doc/lesstif-0.89.4 reveals:

AUTHORS        CREDITS        KNOWN_BUGS  RELEASE-POLICY
BUG-REPORTING  CURRENT_NOTES  NEWS        TODO
COPYING        ChangeLog      NOTES       example.motifbind
COPYING.LIB    FAQ            README      motifbind.sun+linux

I am running rpm 3.0.4-0.38.  I ran rpm as a regular user and the files are
not accessible by that user.  However, if I do an ls as the user, it knows
that the files are there but it lists them all as "Permission denied".

rpm should:

1. Display a more useful error message such as "inaccessible" (or "unknown"
if "inaccessible" is too long), or
2. dissallow the user to run -Va unless they are root.

Comment 1 Jeff Johnson 2000-08-10 05:33:23 UTC
Because of the use of rpm -Va in numerous scripts, it's not possible to change
the output
format to, for example, supply a more informative error message. Either run rpm
-Va as root
or fix the permissions of the doc files in question.