[Spacewalk-list] FW: Updating software channel to new minorversion

[Brian Collins]

>Do we really need to create new channels everytime a minor version is released?  Is there a "best practices" document or resource somewhere for >Spacewalk?  How does the RH Satellite product address this same issue?

I'm on Satellite (version 5.4.1).  Here's how I address minor versions:
-We have a base channel for RHEL 5, which automatically gets Red Hat's latest releases.  I.E. when RHEL 5.7 was released, that channel got updated to 5.7 overnight when my satellite-sync cron job ran.  I have only a test virtual machine in this channel.  It serves as a standard.
-I have cloned that channel to other base channels, with names such as development, sandbox, production, etc.  They are parallel to the RHEL 5 base channel, not children of it.  I initially cloned them as 'Original state' of the RHEL 5 channel.  All our other systems are in these channels, according to their roles.
-When errata are released, I run a Python script against the RHEL 5 channel, which shows me the errata that are in RHEL 5 but not in these cloned channels.  I could use the GUI, but it's faster to run the scripts (less clicky), and I'm a command-line geek anyway. 
-From that point, I can use the GUI to sync errata (it's only one step thru the GUI, just more clicking), or I can use my own Python scripts to do it (which involves 2 steps: one to sync packages, then another to sync errata).

In my understanding, what makes a channel (or system) change minor versions, essentially, is the 'redhat-release' package.  Taking that further, you could install on a system pretty much every package that gets released with a minor version, except 'redhat-release'.  So, if you did that to a RHEL 5.6 system, package-wise, it would be very nearly RHEL 5.7 (with the exception of one package).  And it would still report itself as RHEL 5.6.  Not a good idea, but possible.

I hope I understood your problem correctly and that my approach makes sense.

Brian Collins, RHCE
Sr. Systems Engineer
Southeastern Data Cooperative
brianc at sedata.com