Yum update cron Jobs

[alan]

On Fri, 10 Feb 2006, Don Springall wrote:

> Is anyone working on improvements to yum so a cron job can be scheduled to 
> update everything and not fail due to dependency errors ? If so what is the 
> time line for this feature ?

"yum -y update" will run in a cron job unattended.

As for dependancies...

That depends on a whole bunch of things out of yum's (or any package 
manager's) control.

If the repositories do not resolve for the set of packages you have 
installed, there will be a problem.  (Especially if you are using test 
versions.)

If you use more than just the standard repositories, you run a risk of 
things not resolving.  (Especially if you have "alternate" versions of 
software installed or add-ons to software in the main repository, or a 
library that is in different repositories under different names.)

For example:

You have package A from main that depends on Library Z version 0.1.1.  
Package B from Fred's repository also depends on that library.  Library Z 
gets updated to 0.1.2.  Package A also gets updated to deal with that 
update.  If package B does not get updated by Fred, Yum will not be able 
to resolve the dependancies.

Also, if someone forgot to rebuild a dependacy in extras, you might see a 
problem.  (Usually only happens in Rawhide, but sometimes people miss 
things.)

Sometimes there are situations that yum should be able to resolve, but 
can't.  If you have an x86_64 install, you can have multiple installs of a 
library with different architectures. If you try to update package A and 
it needs library Z updated, it will only update for the current 
architecture, not for all architectures for which library Z is installed.  
It does not effect a full upgrade, however.

> Does anyone know if SUSE's smart package manager will resolve all dependency 
> problems and run as a cron job ?

It will have the same problems as described above.

Dependancy resolution is not magic.  It cannot be resolved by the package 
manager if the packages are not built correctly or if there are missing 
pieces.

It is like blaming your kid for being unable to complete a jigsaw puzzle 
when the pieces were never included in the box.

If you stick with the standard repositories and a limited number of 
packages, you should not have a problem.  You should always have an option 
to flag someone if there are errors for any automatic software update 
process.

-- 
"George W. Bush -- Bringing back the Sixties one Nixon at a time."