FreeBSD Porter's Handbook
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# 12.18 Rerolling Distfiles

Sometimes the authors of software change the content of released distfiles without changing the file's name. You have to verify that the changes are official and have been performed by the author. It has happened in the past that the distfile was silently altered on the download servers with the intent to cause harm or compromise end user security.

Put the old distfile aside, download the new one, unpack them and compare the content with diff(1). If you see nothing suspicious, you can update `distinfo`. Be sure to summarize the differences in your PR or commit log, so that other people know that you have taken care to ensure that nothing bad has happened.

You might also want to contact the authors of the software and confirm the changes with them.

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