[Spacewalk-list] Using API to install updates

[Tom Brown]

> Hello,
>
> Yes, it definitely is.  I'll attach a python script we use here, but if
> you want to write your own, a useful resource is the API docs (which can
> be found at http://$your_spacewalk/rhn/apidoc/ .
>
> Some notes on our script:
> - it uses the local /etc/yum.conf "exclude" directive to mask packages
> that will be pushed for updates
> - inactive or locked systems will not have updates pushed out to them
> - the script does its best to try to not schedule duplicate updates (it
> looks at pending events and masks out packages that are currently queued)
> - there's a commented-out block at the end that can apply errata, too-
> although it does not currently respect the yum.conf excludes (*note*:
> without this, updates /with/ errata will not be applied!)
>
> Two bugs:
> - clients will occasionally fail to install updates (although they will
> be re-queued next run) for one of two reasons: the repodata isn't
> written out yet that contains the new package information, or they use
> the yum cache and again don't see the package.  In at least one of these
> cases, I've seen a "success" returned- although, again, the package will
> get re-queued the next run.
> - there was a bug (rhbz 588901) in system.listLatestUpgradablePackages
> that returned too many packages.  This should be fixed in sw1.1.
>
> Also, as Tomas said, there is a checkbox in the webui as well, but that
> only applies updates with errata.

many thanks for this i'll take a look as these are updates and not
errata as such.

thanks again