Comments on: Automatic package updates in CentOS 6 http://major.io/2012/09/21/automatic-package-updates-in-centos-6/ Words of wisdom from a Linux engineer focused on information security Wed, 22 May 2013 10:11:16 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.5.1 By: Otto http://major.io/2012/09/21/automatic-package-updates-in-centos-6/#comment-60065 Otto Tue, 30 Apr 2013 08:00:21 +0000 http://rackerhacker.com/?p=3760#comment-60065 Thank you for this article.
I did however have quite a problem getting yum-cron to run on CentOS 6.4 until I realized the cron job that actually does the work (/etc/cron.daily/0yum.cron) relies on a flag having been set by the yum-cron _daemon_.
On my systems, yum-cron would not work until I told this daemon to start at boot, like so:
chkconfig yum-cron on
service yum-cron start

]]> By: Joe Julian http://major.io/2012/09/21/automatic-package-updates-in-centos-6/#comment-32418 Joe Julian Fri, 02 Nov 2012 14:29:46 +0000 http://rackerhacker.com/?p=3760#comment-32418 For excluding packages only from yum-cron but not manual yum, in /etc/sysconfig/yum-cron set
YUM_PARAMETER=”-x foopkg”
instead.

@linuxgine
If you would like the report to go somewhere besides root, in /etc/sysconfig/yum-cron set
MAILTO=”me@mydomain.dom”

]]> By: etalas http://major.io/2012/09/21/automatic-package-updates-in-centos-6/#comment-32010 etalas Sat, 20 Oct 2012 13:46:59 +0000 http://rackerhacker.com/?p=3760#comment-32010 @Martin Barry:
The CentOS packages are missing information about the security impact of updates. When you install “yum-plugin-security” you’ll notice that `yum –security check-update` never gives you anything useful. I got a script to reduce the output of (distribution specific) security updates listing tools to a single number (for Zabbix to query) and after some weeks I realized the CentOS hosts _never_ report security updates to install (as opposed to Ubuntu, Debian, Gentoo and Fedora).

@Major:
The RSS-feed for your blog (not just comments for single posts) is well hidden, I wasn’t able to find it…

]]> By: Martin Barry http://major.io/2012/09/21/automatic-package-updates-in-centos-6/#comment-31062 Martin Barry Thu, 27 Sep 2012 14:29:30 +0000 http://rackerhacker.com/?p=3760#comment-31062 Doesn’t the exclusion variable in yum.conf then prevent those from being installed, even with a manual yum run?

It would also be much nicer to be able to automate security updates but leave less urgent ones to a manual run.

]]> By: Major Hayden http://major.io/2012/09/21/automatic-package-updates-in-centos-6/#comment-30817 Major Hayden Fri, 21 Sep 2012 14:58:08 +0000 http://rackerhacker.com/?p=3760#comment-30817 linuxgine — Just go with the defaults. You’ll get updates applied automatically with a report emailed to root.

]]> By: linuxgine http://major.io/2012/09/21/automatic-package-updates-in-centos-6/#comment-30816 linuxgine Fri, 21 Sep 2012 14:57:26 +0000 http://rackerhacker.com/?p=3760#comment-30816 And if you want to update and have a report?

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