Changelogs for rudimentary Redhat packages such as chkconfig

Question

Frequently when running yum update I will see packages such as chkconfig requiring an update and I'd like to find out exactly what has changed, I mean such packages have been around for such a long time that I couldn't imagine what changes could be made to it. Are these sorts of updates for security, performance, or what?

Answer 1

Typically, they are small changes, bugfixes and compatibility updates...

You can use the rpm -q --changelog packagename to query the package's changelogs.

Por ejemplo:

[root@xt ~]# rpm -q --changelog chkconfig
* Wed Feb 01 2012 Bill Nottingham <notting@redhat.com> 1.3.49.3-2
- fix another regression, this one in 'install_initd' (#696305)

* Tue Jan 17 2012 Bill Nottingham <notting@redhat.com> 1.3.49.2-1
- backport fix for regression introduced in last set of fixes (#782152)

* Wed Jan 04 2012 Bill Nottingham <notting@redhat.com> 1.3.49.1-1
- backport LSB fixes from head
- fixes: #693202/#771455, #649227/#771452, #750446/#771454, #701573/#771741, #696305 (<jbastian@redhat.com>)

---

If you install the yum-plugin-changelog package, you can query directly from yum.

[root@xt ~]# yum changelog all zfs
Loaded plugins: changelog, fastestmirror, security, versionlock

Listing all changelogs

==================== Installed Packages ====================
zfs-0.6.1-1.el6.x86_64                   installed
* Fri Mar 22 07:00:00 2013 Brian Behlendorf <behlendorf1@llnl.gov> - 0.6.1-1
- First official stable release.


==================== Available Packages ====================
zfs-0.6.2-1.el6.x86_64                   zfs
* Wed Aug 21 07:00:00 2013 Brian Behlendorf <behlendorf1@llnl.gov> - 0.6.2-1
- Released 0.6.2-1

* Fri Mar 22 07:00:00 2013 Brian Behlendorf <behlendorf1@llnl.gov> - 0.6.1-1
- First official stable release.

changelog stats. 2 pkgs, 2 source pkgs, 3 changelogs