hallo I found this in maximun-rpm from RH9 docu: rpm -qp --queryformat='[%{FILEMODES:perms} %{FILEUSERNAME} %{FILEGROUPNAME} %-80{FILENAMES} : %{=NAME} \n]' *.rpm running this on the distro cd's for each packages gives the orginal permissions,etc. running this output against an ls -lR and a lot of "visual grep's" ;-)) gives me the view of a lot work to do, quick leading to a faster solution for an mistakenly chmoded and chowned /etc/, /dev, .... FRESH INSTALLATION ! good luck !!! ronald