[rhn-users] Patching Red Hat servers

[Mitch Anderson]

West, Brian wrote:
> West, Brian wrote:
>   
>> but when it comes time to patch the production system how do I patch
>>     
> it
>   
>> to match the test system ?
>>   
>>     
> If the process of testing systems before the patches are applied to 
> production, just downloading all the patches on all systems and let them
>
> sit on the local disks of all servers without applying them to the 
> production boxes until they're ready to be patched. Keeping the 
> production in sync with test could be done with a simple bash script 
> comparing the output of "rpm -qa" and installing the new RPM's from the 
> local disk.
>
> Okay, this may be workable. However, several weeks may go by while
> testing. In the meantime, all systems are happily downloading patches
> and keeping them locally. In some cases there may be more than one
> revision. When it comes time to patch production we only apply same as
> test. 
>   
They don't have to download constantly.. can be set to only download 
when you want them to.
> Could get a bit messy in maintaining this but I guess you are saying
> that for less than 10 servers this is manageable ?
>   
If you only download the updates on the prod boxes you will be testing 
on the test boxes, it won't be much work at all. Tho, depending on how 
the bash script(or pick any other language you want) was written it 
wouldn't be hard to do it either way(having the box automatically 
download the updates). Just will want to remember to to update the rhn 
profile after you install/update the RPM's manually.
> Is the Management Module of any benefit in this scenario ?
>   
 From what is on RedHats feature list and comparison of the Update and 
Management, it appears the Management entitlement would be more ideal. 
Looks like you could even use RHN instead of having to write a bash 
script...

*Package Profile Comparison* - Users can compare two systems directly 
against each other, or build a package profile to compare against. 
Results let you see the differences on both machines.

from: http://www.redhat.com/rhn/compare/

Looks to be what you want... Along with the System Grouping.

However, I've never used these features... since they were just emerging 
when I left my previous employer so I never got a chance to use them 
fully. So you may want to see about getting a trial for them (RedHat was 
always willing to give me one or two to test something if I wanted) to 
make sure it'll work the way you want.

-Mitch