[rhn-users] up2date sequence

[RHN List Readers]

On Tue, 2007-03-13 at 20:05, Calvert, Charlotte wrote:

> According to our list we have 344 updates. Will the next step after
> pushing the button be to install all of the updates one after another
> and then ask me to reboot, or will it be one at a time followed by
> constant reboots, or will it reboot whenever it feels like it?   Does
> it even install the updates or does it just download them for me to
> run?

There are some configuration settings that control this -- I usually
hand-edit the config file in /etc/sysconfig/rhn/up2date where I choose
to NOT have reboots done for me automatically, leave the default kernel
skips in place and sometimes elect to download without installing.

If you download without installing, you can pass lots of files to the
rpm command and it'll do them in the right order for dependencies, but
won't reboot your entire server. (I assume up2date can do so if
configured that way.)

There are comments in the config file and I find the man pages okay for
some hints -- but like you found a lack of a clear explanation of how
the RHN process works in overview.

Whatever you do, you probably don't need (and up2date won't force)
reboots in most cases. Unlike MS-Windows and the like, you can restart
almost everything in a modular way here without needing server reboots.
Just upgrading an RPM will generally do this for you, and anything else
required. In fact, I think it's only the installation of a new kernel
itself that means a total reboot. I've had good experiences doing a
"server something restart" for the other things I run like Apache,
MySQL, BIND, Sendmail and so on.

Do please ask for more specifics on any area(s) that I've left too
open-ended here.


-- 
Best regards,
James.
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