How do I enable nightly yum?

[Timothy Payne]

On Fri, 2005-05-20 at 05:55 +0800, John Summerfied wrote:
> Erin D. Hughes wrote:
> > John Summerfied wrote:
> > 
> >> Rick Stevens wrote:
> >>
> >>>
> >>>> I would have thought a daily (or rather nightly) cron job
> >>>> running "yum -y update" would be what most people would want,
> >>>> at least on a desktop.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> Yes, that's one way.  Don't forget to do "yum -y update >/dev/null 2>&1"
> >>> unless you want mail sent to root everytime it runs.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> I think running yum to automatically update your is a particularly 
> >> effective way of getting your system screwed without you knowing why,
> >>
> >> Diverting all the output to /dev/null compounds the problem because it 
> >> discards some of the evidence.
> >>
> >> How likely is it that a particular update is broken?
> >>     Quite low, but not impossible.
> >> How likely is it that there will be a serious problem with an updated?
> >>     Almost certain.
> >>
> >> There has been a recent kernel update providing a kernel that does not 
> >> work on some systems. On mine, it would not shut down cleanly so I was 
> >> forced to cycle power (no reset button) to reboot. Others had problems 
> >> booting. Worse, the new-kernel policy is the latest-installed is the 
> >> default.
> >>
> >> glibc and rpm both have the ability to bork the entire system.
> >>
> >> I have no problem with running a tool to download updates regularly, 
> >> but I _will not_ apply them automatically. I do it manually so that 
> >> then I know something's changed.
> >>
> >> up2date has the ability to download and _not_ apply updates: I did 
> >> that on taroon beta.
> >> apt-get has the ability to download and _not_ apply updates. I do that 
> >> on my several Debian systems.
> >>
> >> yum has not this ability and so IMV is ill-suited to the task of 
> >> maintaining one's software where automation is desired.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> > John,
> > 
> > I agree 50% with you but,  I have to say that I like > love automation 
> > it gives me time to solve other problems.
> > 
> > That said line 3 in your yum.conf would show you something like
> > logfile=/var/log/yum.log
> > 
> > in there we see stuff like
> > 04/14/05 00:09:25 Dep Installed: tcl 8.4.5-7.i386
> > 04/14/05 00:09:25 Dep Installed: postgresql 7.4.7-3.FC2.1.i386
> > 04/14/05 00:09:25 Updated: postgresql-docs 7.4.7-3.FC2.1.i386
> > 04/15/05 00:45:58 Updated: postgresql-jdbc 7.4.7-3.FC2.1.i386
> > 04/19/05 20:17:07 Erased: mod_python 3.1.3-1.fc2.2.i386
> > 05/07/05 09:23:23 Erased: mailman 3:2.1.5-10.fc2.i386
> > 05/07/05 09:24:36 Updated: clamav-milter 81:0.84-1.i386
> > 05/07/05 09:24:36 Updated: clamav-devel 81:0.84-1.i386
> > 05/07/05 09:24:36 Updated: clamav 81:0.84-1.i386
> > 
> > Just enough to give you information on what the problem might be..... 
> > that mixed with a quick look at messages log or the system log .... ya 
> > your about 3 minutes away from goggling the answer to your problems.
> > 
> > Also you can comment out if you do not wish to do kernel upgrades or 
> > anything else, yum is a little more flexible in that. Sans your download 
> > argument.
> 
> When I update my Debian boxes, I am told what-s being changed, so I have 
> the opportunity to actually know and remember.
> 
> If I update my FC boxes with yum, I must either do it all manually or 
> all automatically. If the latter, I cannot know until after the event 
> and it's something that can too easily escape attention. Potentially, mt 
> systen could reboot after updating, before I can see the results (say 
> there's a power outage - some places round Perth have been powerless for 
> days just now and that's sure to test anyone's UPS and it boots into a 
> duff kernel or glibc's broken.
> 
> And  I didn't change anything Guv.
> 
> There are enough FC (and RHEL) boxes around that that will happen to 
> someone sometime.
> 
> Downloading automatically: good time saver.
> Updating automatically: invitation to Ill Fortune.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> 
> Cheers
> John
> 
> -- spambait
> 1aaaaaaa at computerdatasafe.com.au  Z1aaaaaaa at computerdatasafe.com.au
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> 
On my FC3 it has a check box under System settings > Server settings >
Service settings ( need to be root to change )

Tim...