yum to only update security updates

[Ed Wilts]

On Wed, Jun 29, 2005 at 12:22:10PM +0000, Anze Vidmar wrote:
> Is it possible to configure yum, to tell him to fetch and install *only*
> updates, that are "security updates"?

As far as I can tell, the short answer is no.  yum only knows about
repositories and as long as security updates are in the same source
directory as non-security updates, yum has no way of knowing.

This isn't really a yum client issue - it's a repository issue.

Red Hat puts both in the same source rpm directory so if you rebuild all
the updates from the sources, you'll mix the two types of updates.

You could parse out the various Red Hat announcements to find just the
security advisories and use yum to install those.  Check the page at
http://www.redhat.com/security/updates/advisory/ to see the different
methods.

One word of warning - a security update today may rely on a feature
update in a package that was released last month as part of a
non-security udpate.  In this case, the dependency checks kick in and
you could end up doing non-security updates anyway.

        .../Ed

-- 
Ed Wilts, RHCE
Mounds View, MN, USA
mailto:ewilts at ewilts.org
Member #1, Red Hat Community Ambassador Program