Prelink warning in output of rpm -Va

Question

I have run the following as root on a RHEL 4 box to get a list of the modified files:

rpm -Va

The output includes lines such as:

prelink: /tmp/#prelink#.60m2Jq: Recorded 2 dependencies, now seeing -1

S.?.....    /usr/bin/gencat
prelink: /tmp/#prelink#.2izAsr: Recorded 2 dependencies, now seeing -1

S.?.....    /usr/bin/getconf
prelink: /tmp/#prelink#.QIPLxn: Recorded 2 dependencies, now seeing -1

S.?.....    /usr/bin/getent

Are the prelink warnings anything to worry about?

Secondly, the question mark in the MD5 sum column means that the value could not be calculated. Any theories as to why? I can do md5sum filename without any problem.

Answer 1

I would backup and reinstall (--force) the affected packages, just to be on the safe side. My reading of the diagnostic is that those binaries are statically linked (but where not when prelink last ran). If that's true (try ldd getent) that's a strong hint of a cracked machine.