On Wed, Oct 30, 2002 at 09:14:43AM -0800, Chuck Dutrow wrote: > > I am new to using RH for my business. I have "played" with it since ver 4 and >finally this year opened a new business and decided to use ver 7. So my question is >there a way to set up something that will allow automated ver upgrades from the web, >I heard something about this if you belong to RHNetwork. As I use the server 24-7 I >cant really afford to take the server down to install new ver all the time. So if you >have any suggestions let me know. A How-To would be great!! >
For starters, please wrap your lines! Now, please consider carefully what you're trying to do. IMHO, and I've been managing enterprise systems for about 20 years, is you should *never* do automated upgrades. You can certainly get automated listings of what updates need to be applied, but they're only for the current version. There are no mechanisms for upgrading version to version (e.g. 7.3 to 8.0) automatically. Go to https://rhn.redhat.com/ and set yourself up for a free account. If your server really is production, then you should strongly consider paying the $60/yr to get priority service. If you don't, there will be periods when security patches are released and you won't be able to get at them because the free service is bogged down. I've seen this happen for periods of a few days at a time and during this, you're vulnerable. RHN will allow things like up2date -l to show you what patches should be applied, and up2date -u to apply those patches. There have been, and possibly could be again, updates that will require manual intervention. If you automate those updates, you could cause damage. There are always going to be issues with configuration files - if the new version has different config file format than the current version, and there is no mechanism to migrate those config files, what should happen? You can't use the old, and you probably can't use the new because you'll lose your customizations. I've seen an update clobber my ftpaccess file - without my customizations, I was open to major security holes. In this case, the config files *were* compatible, but the Red Hat packager chose to supply the new default rather than making it available by the .rpmnew convention. Some updates will require reboots - e.g. there have been kernel releases that fix security exploits. Would you want those run automatically? Some updates require a restart of the web server or xinetd. Do you want those applied automatically? Simply put, you can not run a Red Hat server 24x7 - there will be change windows when you have the opportunity to apply patches and do reboots. -- Ed Wilts, Mounds View, MN, USA mailto:ewilts@;ewilts.org Member #1, Red Hat Community Ambassador Program -- redhat-list mailing list unsubscribe mailto:redhat-list-request@;redhat.com?subject=unsubscribe https://listman.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/redhat-list
