[TriLUG] Trust up2date ?

Christian J Hedemark chris at yonderway.com
Fri Dec 14 10:45:03 EST 2001


Kevin Hunter asks:
> What do you, the experts, do ?

Two words:  CHANGE MANAGEMENT

Tools like up2date are nice, but ultimately you have to have a plan.  Do
stuff like kernel updates, etc. only after careful planning.  First of all,
do I need this updated package?  Does it have some bugfix that I need, or
does it provide some functionality that will make my life better?

Have and use a staging server to test updates out on.  Run through your plan
on this staging server (including the back-out plan) and verify that all is
good.  This machine can be an old discarded Pentium 233 if you aren't
testing hardware drivers.

Have and test a back-out plan.  What happens if this upgrade leaves you
FUBAR?  You will need to be able to roll back to the state your server was
in before the upgrade.

I'm not bashing up2date, but I do fear that the ease of such tools will make
sysadmins forget to consider the consequences of their actions and plan
accordingly.





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