Mail List writes:
Stock fc6 install - after an update of pam I now have in /etc/pam.d: 4 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 14 Nov 4 12:32 system-auth -> system-auth-ac 8 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 844 Nov 4 12:32 system-auth-ac 4 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 683 Dec 22 16:49 system-auth.rpmnew Should system-auth.rpmnew have replaced system-auth-ac or not? The changelog does not clarify this for me...
The behavior of configuration files is up to the package to define. Here, the updated system-auth file would replace the existing one only if it was not changed from the older package's default; otherwise it gets installed as rpmnew.
The line of thinking here is that if you customized this configuration file, your custom changes should not be gratuitously overwritten by an update. Once you've modified something as fundamental as authentication, you are responsible for maintaining the configuration file to reflect any changes required by the newer/updated version of the package.
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