Determining which config files I have modified?

[Adam McGreggor]

On Mon, Aug 06, 2007 at 06:55:48PM +0300, Marius Gedminas wrote:
> On Mon, Aug 06, 2007 at 04:20:20PM +0100, Adam Funk wrote:
> > On 2007-08-06, Felipe Figueiredo wrote:
> > 
> > > On Monday 06 August 2007 06:54:30 Adam Funk wrote:
> > >> Is there any semi-automatic way to determine which config files
> > >> (especially in /etc/) on my system I have modified from the packaged
> > >> versions?
> > >
> > > maybe you could use a IDS like tripwire?
> > 
> > I already use aide, but I don't keep the old reports or databases
> > indefinitely (my current aide.db reflects my customizations up to last
> > night, for example).
> > 
> > I was hoping for some sort of apt-based trick to go through packages
> > comparing checksums in the packages with those of the files on disk.
> 
> That's exactly what debsums does.  Caveats:
> 
>   * you have to explicitly ask debsums to list changes in configuration
>     files
> 
>   * not all packages come with MD5SUMS files, so you may want to install
>     the apt hook described in the debsums manual page to generate those
> 
> Personally I've acquired a habit of always creating a copy named *.orig
> before I modify any config file.  This way I can easily see the changed
> I've made.

Inline commenting (although for trivial things, it's hardly worth it) and
RCS is my approach.