[TriLUG] large-scale patch rollouts?

[Ben Pitzer]

apt (in either Debian or any RPM distro) is not a thing that should probably
be put in a cron job.  All too often it requires some level of user
interaction to configure packages, or in Debian's case, can leave some
packages un-updated because of new file dependencies that are missing.  For
example, if gaim requires a new widget library (libfoo) package that is not
installed, it will be held back during update time until you either 'apt-get
install gaim', which will treat it like a newly installed package, and get
all dependencies, or else install libfoo (although apt doesn't tell you why
it's holding the package back, or what is missing), and 'apt-get upgrade'
again.

I manually upgrade my Debian server with apt on a weekly basis.  The only
think I'll cron is the email to remind me to do it, or 'apt-get update' and
a dry run of 'apt-get upgrade' to tell me what all has an updated to be
installed.

Regards,
Ben Pitzer

---------------------------------------------

"Those that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety
 deserve neither liberty nor safety."
 --Ben Franklin--




trilug-bounces at trilug.org wrote:
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> On Tuesday 16 September 2003 01:56 pm, David R.Matusiak wrote:
>> i know up2date is the tool to apply patches to a single (Red Hat)
>> machine, but can this functionality be extended to tens or hundreds
>> of machines?
>
> I use apt4rpm (apt-get for rpm) +  local "updates" server (that
> mirrors official update servers for RedHat, daily rsync) + a cron job
> on
> the Linux
> boxes that launch a script (see below).
>
> apt4rpm:
> http://apt-rpm.tuxfamily.org/
>
> scripts:
> - -------- /usr/local/sbin/cronupdate.sh ---------- #~/bin/sh
> # for Red Hat, apt-get enabled
> # by Sinner from the Prairy , 2002
> # sinner at escomposlinux.org / sinner at trilug.org
> apt-get update
> /usr/local/sbin/auto-update.sh > /root/auto-update.log
> cat /root/auto-update.log | mailto -s "Manual-update for `hostname`
> at `date`" sinner at trilug.org
> - ------------------------------
> - -------- /usr/local/sbin/autoupdate.sh ---------- #!/bin/sh
> # by Sinner from the Prairy , 2002
> # sinner at escomposlinux.org / sinner at trilug.org
> # This script is called by crond.
>
>
> echo =================================================================
> echo Updates for `hostname` starting at `date`
> echo
> =================================================================
> echo
>
> apt-get -y upgrade
>
> echo
> echo =================================================================
> echo Updates for `hostname` finished at `date`
> echo =================================================================
>
> - ------------------------------
> - -------------- crontab -l --------------
>
> # auto update system
> 55 23 * * *     /usr/local/sbin/cronupdate.sh
> - ------------------------------
>
>
> Enjoy!
> - --
> Visit my website! http://www.ibiblio.org/sinner/
> Running on Mandrake Linux 9.0 - Kernel  2.4.19smp  Linux User # 89976
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>
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