Description of problem: fipshmac does not check its input for correctness, leading to confusing situations like: # fipshmac --help # echo $? # ls -l .--help.hmac -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 65 Sep 16 16:48 .--help.hmac Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): fipscheck-1.0.2-1.el5 Actual results: Return code 0, the file.--help is generated Expected results: Some kind of error message or at least return code != 0 This is kinda cornercase I guess, b/c looking at filehmac.c, what probably happens is that a call is done to /usr/sbin/prelink --verify --help - so instead of expected contents of unprelinked binary, you get a prelink help message from the pipe :-]
fipshmac does not call prelink anymore. So it will return exit code 4 on nonexisting files (such as --help).