[rhn-users] ongoing problems with up2date

[Matt Brock]

Hello.

I have a couple of dozen or so servers running Red Hat Enterprise  
Linux 4. These are fairly minimal server builds that I install with a  
customised Kickstart setup.

For a long time I have had serious problems using up2date. I use it  
in CLI mode because I don't install X11 on the servers. When I run it  
to check for and install new updates, it only gets so far during the  
process and then just... hangs forever. I have to use a kill -9 on  
the process to destroy it, and then run the command again. Sometimes  
it will get a bit further and then hang again. It hangs so frequently  
that it can take me hours of just sitting there doing this repeatedly  
in order to update just one server. Sometimes it gets to bad that it  
hangs in the same place every time, and the only way I've found of  
clearing that situation is to reboot the server, which is ridiculous.  
I have no idea why rebooting helps (although it doesn't generally  
help much).

I've tried forcing it to use a regular HTTP connection instead of  
using HTTPS, and I then sniffed the HTTP traffic. There was no  
indication of anything which could be causing the problem - it just  
stops halfway through downloading files. There is nothing remotely  
informative in the logs. I've tried removing up2date's temporary  
files, which makes no difference. I've tried fiddling around with all  
sorts of settings in the config file, e.g. turning off use of  
certificates, and altering the buffer and retry settings.

None of this made the slightest difference. Up2date continues to hang  
every time, and it's now become a very serious problem and a source  
of extreme frustration. I haven't found any examples on the internet  
of people managing to solve problems like this. I think up2date is a  
dreadful piece of software and I don't have much hope of solving this  
problem decently; however, if anyone does have any suggestions or  
ideas at all I would be _extremely_ grateful to hear them.

I note that Red Hat have given up on up2date in RHEL5 and have  
started using yum instead. This doesn't surprise me because my  
experience of yum is that it's a far better piece of software than  
up2date. So, I'm wondering if it's possible to use yum on RHEL4 to  
talk to RHN instead of using up2date. If anyone has any knowledge of  
how to go about this I'd absolutely love to hear it.

Many thanks in advance for any help or suggestions anyone is able to  
give.

Kind regards.

Matt.

--
Matt Brock
Senior System Administrator

GameAccount
77 Oxford Street
London W1D 2ES

Phone: +44 (0)20 7659 2515
Fax:   +44 (0)20 7659 2233
Email: mbrock at gameaccount.com
Web:   http://www.gameaccount.com/