What is the difference between glibc-2.12-1.166.el6_7.7.i686.rpm and glibc-2.12-1.166.el6_7.3.i686.rpm
I've always believed that with a package name like glibc-2.12-1.166.el6_7.7.i686.rpm, the glibc version was 2.12, the RH version of that library was 1.66 and el6_7 referred to the OS version number. What is the significance of the .3 or .7 after the version number?
As you can see from my example, I am trying to decide if I need to patch my O/S, again. I patched in January and glibc is glibc-2.12-1.166.el6_7.3.i686.rpm. The RHEL notification for CVE-2015-7547 points to glibc-2.12-1.166.el6_7.7.i686.rpm.
Any ideas?
Cheers!
Robert
Responses
Red Hat seems to be shifting the 'minor patch' version changes further to the right in the version number. All that really matters is that the "el6_7.7" version is newer than "el6_7.3". If you want to see more detail on the differences (e.g. if your policy is to only apply security updates) you can use the rpm --changelog flag to query the newer version:
rpm -q glibc --changelog | less
# or, if the package is downloaded but not installed:
rpm -q --changelog -p (filename.rpm)
The changelogs don't seem to be consistent about including CVE numbers for security issues, you might be better informed by reading the errata advisory notice that was released with the package (e.g. RHSA-2016-0175, for the specific glibc update you are asking about).
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