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I have a custom RPM I created that needs to add entries to sudoers so I have entries added a file in my RPM /etc/sudoers.d/mypackage and put my sudo commands in there.

The files gets added and the RPM is generated. Unfortunately, when I try to install the package, it complains:

file /etc/sudoers.d from install of mypackage-1.0.0-1.x86_64 conflicts with file from sudo-1.8.6p7016.el7.x86_64

The rpm will install fine if I install it with --force such as:

rpm -Uvh --force mypackage.rpm

I probably could echo the contents of the sudoers file into /etc/sudoers.d but I would prefer the sudoers file be tracked with the rpm.

How do I add entries to sudoers from a custom RPM without sudo complaining?

EDIT: To clarify my post a bit, I have a dozen directories filled with files:

/etc/sudoers.d
/etc/httpd/conf.d/
/etc/systemd/system
/etc/cron.d
...

Because I don't have beforehand the list of directories and this list may change, I tried to do is:

%files
/etc/*
%exclude /etc/sudoers.d
/etc/sudoers.d/*

but at that point, files in sudoers.d don't get included. If I wanted to mention directories, one by one, I would have to dynamically generate that list of directories

As was suggested, I tried to do rpm -qf /etc/sudoers.d and it does say sudo-1.8.5.el7_2.x86_64 . If I do rpm -qf /etc/systemd/system, it does say systemd-219-19.el7_2.x86_64 but rpm does not complain when I try to install the rpm

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This is probably because in the %files section you have something like this:

%files
/etc/sudoers.d/

This makes your package not only include the files in /etc/sudoers.d; but also the directory itself. You can check this using rpm -qlp <generated-rpm>.

rpm does not allow different packages to provide the same file or directory. The solution is to only package the files inside this directory:

%files
/etc/sudoers.d/*
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  • I actually had /etc/* and I voted you up but because if I do that my problem does disappear. However, my problem is I potentially have a varying number of directories in /etc and that is why I did /etc/* . I tried to add an exclude /etc/sudoers.d then add a directive /etc/sudoers.d/* but the files in there ended up not included. Is there a way to include all etc subdirectories without listing them one by one and still work?
    – Youn Elan
    Jun 27, 2016 at 13:17
  • The interesting part is it only does that with /etc/sudoers.d . It does not do that with /etc/httpd/conf.d /etc/profile.d /etc/systemd/system etc
    – Youn Elan
    Jun 27, 2016 at 13:18
  • why do you do an "exclude"? You can just specify manually each of your files (/etc/sudoers.d/file1 etc.) ; either the line I proposed: /etc/sudoers.d/*. You can check afterwards what exactly got included in your rpm using rpm -qlp.
    – Chris Maes
    Jun 27, 2016 at 14:03
  • It is logical that it doesn't do that with /etc/httpd/conf.d/ etc; that is because nobody seems to provide those directories. You can check who owns a certain file or directory using rpm -qf /path/to/dir/or/file
    – Chris Maes
    Jun 27, 2016 at 14:04
  • I edited the post to clarify: yes, it is owned by sudo but the same thing applies with /etc/systemd/system (provided by systemd) and /etc/httpd/conf.d (provided by httpd) but no warning happens there
    – Youn Elan
    Jun 27, 2016 at 15:03

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