What's the difference? What really defines your system is 5.x or 5.y? The redhat-release file in /etc or the set of packages you have installed? I believe it's the set of packages.<br><br>Although some scripts check for a string in /etc/redhat-release, in fact this is a way of telling if the set of packages you have installed is compatible with the product being installed and prevent installation issues.<br>
<br>Some programs are dumb and check for "5.x" string instead of only "5". In this case, one could overwrite the redhat-release to satisfy the script.<br clear="all">-- <br>Felipe<br>
<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Tue, Nov 24, 2009 at 17:46, Seth Stone <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:sstone@pinecove.com">sstone@pinecove.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
<div link="blue" vlink="purple" lang="EN-US">
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);">This is kind of an side question: What event actually causes
/etc/redhat-release to be updated? Is it once you get all the packages for a
certain release or is there just a key package that causes the increment?</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);"> </span></p>
<div style="border-style: solid none none; border-color: rgb(181, 196, 223) -moz-use-text-color -moz-use-text-color; border-width: 1pt medium medium; padding: 3pt 0in 0in;">
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size: 10pt;">From:</span></b><span style="font-size: 10pt;"> <a href="mailto:rhn-users-bounces@redhat.com" target="_blank">rhn-users-bounces@redhat.com</a>
[mailto:<a href="mailto:rhn-users-bounces@redhat.com" target="_blank">rhn-users-bounces@redhat.com</a>] <b>On Behalf Of </b>Felipe Massia<br>
<b>Sent:</b> Tuesday, November 24, 2009 12:58 PM<div class="im"><br>
<b>To:</b> Discussions about Red Hat Network (<a href="http://rhn.redhat.com" target="_blank">rhn.redhat.com</a>)<br>
<b>Subject:</b> Re: [rhn-users] Stay on minor release</div></span></p>
</div>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;">I think it's not feasible
(financially?) to keep all minor versions up to date, it would be a
maintainer's nightmare. Also, most people won't need to keep a system frozen at
an exact minor release (except for the case I point out below). I think that's
why Red Hat supports major versions only. This means that when a bug comes out,
they need to fix only the latest versions of a package (one per major version).</p><div><div></div><div class="h5"><br>
<br>
The problem is when a third party says "my product was validated to work
with RHEL 5.1" but they've already released 5.4. And now, should I keep my
system frozen at 5.1 or update it to 5.4+? Before continuing, let me quote <a href="http://www.redhat.com/security/updates/errata/" target="_blank">http://www.redhat.com/security/updates/errata/</a>:</div></div><div><div>
</div><div class="h5">
<p class="MsoNormal">The Red Hat Enterprise Linux Life Cycle is designed to
reduce the level of change within each major release over time increasing
predictability and decreasing maintenance costs.</p>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;"><br>
and also:</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">During the entire Life Cycle, Red Hat makes commercially
reasonable efforts to maintain binary compatibility for the core runtime
environment across all minor releases and asynchronous errata (possible
exceptions include critical security issues). </p>
</div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;"><br>
So Red Hat does not *guarantee* 5.4 will behave the exact same way as a 5.1.
Well, thinking about that, it's kind of impossible, isn't it? When they fix a
bug, the behaviour is inevitably changed. So there's a best effort to minimize
change, but they simply can't say there'll be no change at all.<br>
<br>
Back to the third party product validation issue, I believe saying it works for
5.1 is the same as saying it works for version 5, releases 1 and above. Some
companies may refuse to give support to a system where the minor release is
different. But isn't it obvious that an operating system must be updated?<br>
<br>
I guess minor releases are only a way to identify media releases (ISOs, CDs and
DVDs).<br>
<br>
Also, a detail you may have missed: when you do "yum update" on a 5.3
you don't go exactly to 5.4, you go somewhere between 5.4 and 5.5. The only
guaranteed way to go to a minor version (exactly) is installing from ISOs.<br clear="all">
-- <br>
Felipe<br>
<br>
</p>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal">On Tue, Nov 24, 2009 at 15:45, Seth Stone <<a href="mailto:sstone@pinecove.com" target="_blank">sstone@pinecove.com</a>> wrote:</p>
<div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal">I’ve
noticed that with both up2date in RHEL 4 and yum in RHEL 5 my systems are
automatically transitioned to the next minor release of the OS. For
example, if I install 5.3 and run “yum update” I will be migrated to 5.4.
Is there any way to designate that you want to update only to the currently
installed minor release?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I’m
trying to keep some test servers in sync with systems at our hosting provider
that use a satellite RHN server that I can’t access from my test servers.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I
appreciate your response.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Thanks,</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Seth
Stone</p>
</div>
</div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><br>
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