Does the on-disk image of an executable ever change?

[Darrell Michaud]

Ben Scott wrote:
'm wondering if, somehow, an RPM transaction didn't commit
> properly.  Maybe RPM thinks it updated the binaries, and so updated


I have seen these exact symptoms. After an exhaustive analysis against
file integrity archives (AIDE), I found evidence that the a large RPM
update transaction left the RPM database / filesystem out of sync. It
happened on Centos 5.x when a large update hung unrecoverably during the
final step where the kernel post-install scripts execute. This appeared to
affect packages in the larger transaction.

The fix for me was to remove these packages from the RPM database and
re-apply them.