RedHat/CentOS and Ubuntu both provide packages to verify the contents of a package. CentOS uses rpm -V. Ubuntu uses debsums.I've spoken to admins who run these tools to verify the packages on their systems. Do these tools enhance the security of a system, or do they provide a false sense of security?Likewise, do these tools increase the stability of a system, since they can help detect problems after filesystem corruption?
Does verifying packages enhance security and/or stability of a system?
ubuntu;security;rhel;stability
In the case of security it will only catch a limited number of issues, when the person that broke into your server and replaced/changed some files is rather inexperienced, as any decent rootkit will make sure that a tool like debsums will see the original files and no alarm will ring.It might be slightly more useful to detect filesystem corruption.In any case, it certainly does no harm, as long as you are aware of the limitations.