Chris Tyler - Fedora Linux

Before turning on automatic updates, it's important to verify that yum is configured with the right options:

1. Repackaging should be enabled (see Lab 5.4, "Rolling Back a Package Installation, Upgrade, or Removal ") so that you can recover from a bad update. Make sure you have plenty of disk space for the repackage repository!

2. Ensure that yum is enabled only for the repositories that you wish to automatically update (see Lab 5.3, "Using Repositories ").

3. Exclude any packages that you do not wish to update automatically. In particular, think carefully about whether you want the kernel to be updated without your knowledge; such a change won't take effect until the next time the system boots, but changing the kernel can cause some software or services to fail until kernel modules are updated to match the new kernel.

Once you have yum configured the way you want, configure yum-updatesd to automatically apply updates. The configuration file /etc/yum-updatesd.conf initially looks like this:

[main]

# how often to check for new updates (in seconds)

run_interval = 3600

# how often to allow checking on request (in seconds)

updaterefresh = 600

# how to send notifications (valid: dbus, email, syslog)

emit_via = dbus

# automatically install updates

do_update = no

# automatically download updates

do_download = no

# automatically download deps of updates

do_download_deps = no

Change the do_update line to enable the automatic installation of updates:

do_update = yes

Reload the yum-updatesd configuration to activate your changes, either though the services GUI tool or by entering this command:

# service yum-updatesd reload

Stopping yum-updatesd: [ OK ]

Starting yum-updatesd: [ OK ]

Don't change the emit_via option, or puplet will not work.

The yum-updatesd service polls your configured repositories at regular intervals to determine if updates are available for any of your installed packages. By altering the configuration file, you instruct yum-updatesd to install the updated packages that it finds (effectively performing a yum -y update at regular intervals).

By enabling the do_download and do_download_deps options, you can configure yum-updatesd to download available updates and related dependencies without installing them. This enables you to review the list of updates using Pup and then install selected updates without further download delay.

To set this up, configure /etc/yum/yum-updatesd.conf with these options:

# automatically install updates

do_update = no

# automatically download updates

do_download = yes

# automatically download deps of updates

do_download_deps = yes

The yum-updateonboot package can be used to update a machine whenever it is turned on. This ensures that security patches are automatically applied before the system is used. yum-updateonboot can be activated in addition to the automatic 4 a.m. update.

You can install and configure yum-updateonboot with these commands:

# yum install yum-updateonboot

Setting up Install Process

...(Lines snipped)...

=====================================================================

Package Arch Version Repository Size

=====================================================================

Installing:

yum-updateonboot noarch 0.3.1-1.fc4 extras 5.1 k

Transaction Summary

=====================================================================

Install 1 Package(s)

Update 0 Package(s)

Remove 0 Package(s)

Total download size: 5.1 k

Is this ok [y/N]: y

...(Lines snipped)...

Installed: yum-updateonboot.noarch 0:0.3.1-1.fc4

Complete!

# chkconfig --add yum-updateonboot

# chkconfig --level 2345 yum-updateonboot on

You can configure yum-updateonboot to reboot the system if any of the updates involve the kernel. Edit /etc/sysconfig/yum-updateonboot and activate the line highlighted here by removing the pound sign ( # ) at the start of the line:

# IF any of these rpms are updated, the yum-updateonboot init script will

# reboot immediately after the yum update. To keep yum-updateonboot from

# rebooting the system, comment this line out.

REBOOT_RPMS="kernel kernel-smp"

# A list of groups that should be updated at boot. For each group mentioned

# yum-updateonboot will call 'yum -y groupupdate' Since group names tend to

# have spaces in them, used a semi-colon to separate the group names

#GROUPLIST="My Group;MyOtherGroup;Some_Group;My Group 4"

 The yum home page: http://linux.duke.edu/projects/yum/

 The yum-updateonboot README file: /usr/share/doc/yum-updateonboot-0.3.1/README (install yum-updateonboot first)

Although there are thousands of packages available in RPM format ready to be installed on a Fedora system, there is a lot of open source software ( http://opensource.org ) that hasn't been packaged into RPMs. This software can be compiled and installed directly from the source files.

Most open source software follows a certain set of conventionsone that the community has adopted as a de facto standard:

 The software is packaged in compressed tar format ( .tar.gz or .tgz ).

 A configure script is provided, which analyzes the system (by trying to compile many tiny programs and attempting to locate certain programs and files). After this analysis, a Makefile is produced.

 The Makefile contains the logic to build and to install the package.

 Basic documentation, including pointers and licensing information, is contained in files with uppercase names such as README , INSTALL , TODO , and LICENSE .

To install software distributed this way:

1. Obtain the compressed tar file (or tarball ) containing the source. You can use a browser to find and download open source software from sites such as http://sourceforge.net .

2. Unpack the tarball:

3. $ tar xvzf xmorph_20040717.tar.gz

4. xmorph-current/

5. xmorph-current/Makefile.in

6. xmorph-current/gtkmorph/

7. xmorph-current/gtkmorph/ChangeLog

8. xmorph-current/gtkmorph/Makefile.in