Email a diff of .rpmnew and .rpmsave file changes to an admin to consider

rpm-dispatch-conf.sh

#!/usr/bin/env bash

mail_to=root
ignorefile=/etc/rpm-dispatch-conf.ignore

newfiles=$(find / -noleaf -ignore_readdir_race -xdev -name \*.rpmsave -or -name \*.rpmnew 2>/dev/null)

for f in $newfiles; do
    newfile=$f
    oldfile=$f
    oldfile=${oldfile%%.rpmnew}
    oldfile=${oldfile%%.rpmsave}
    grep $oldfile /etc/rpm-dispatch-conf.ignore 1>/dev/null 2>&1
    if [[ $? ]]; then
        mailfile=$(mktemp)
        mail_subject="Subject: File needs updating: $oldfile"
        echo >> ${mailfile}
        echo "Add file to ${ignorefile} to ignore changes." >> ${mailfile}
        echo >> ${mailfile}
        diff -u $oldfile $newfile 1>> ${mailfile} 2>&1
        mail -s "${mail_subject}" ${mail_to} < ${mailfile}
        test -e ${mailfile} && rm -f ${mailfile}
    fi
done

exit 0

Details

This is a simple script that trawls your filesystem looking for 'rpmsave' or 'rpmnew' files that indicate a new upstream configuration changes that conflict with your local modifications. It will send an email to root for each of these files it encounters with a diff detailing what the changes are.

It is heavily inspired by Gentoo's dispatch-conf tool.

Instructions

Download this gist, make the script executable and then either configure it to run under cron (or another task scheduler) or run manually after updating your system.