Greetings all,

I have a buddy that has a RedHat 7.3 server handling some specialized Govt apps in a research/simulation environment along with several RH 7.3 workstations. He asked me if I knew of any apps or scripts that would automatically push out patches, updates, etc, much the same way that up2date handles it, or SUS on the Windows side of the house. I suggesting upgrading to RH 8 or 9; but, that is not in the cards. Anyone familiar with something like that, maybe a cron job that talks to the server? Thanks to anyone who can help me out.

Regards,

If I understand what you are looking for , then you could use apt-get(for redhat) and write a cron-job to automate it. Its located at
http://apt.freshrpms.net

I don't know If automatic updates through crontab is a good thing?

If this is production, I would recommend that they test updates on a test box 1st.

who has updated a package, that caused something else to break?

me

manny

I thought about and have used apt-get on the the Fedora build (just to play with it), although I am personally still a Deb fan. Will it actually work with 7.3? I'll forward your suggestions to him. With the apt-get, he would have to build a custom repository on a box somewhere to hold any application specific patches as well as OS patches. Going out to public apt sites is probably going to be a frowned upon, but, if he downloaded the packages and then put them on his trusted network....I'll have to see if he is up to the challange. Thanks for the help, I did forward a link to this forum so he could use it as a resource, as I have. Thanks again.

I wonder if you could download all updates as you described to a depot box, and setup all other boxes repository's (/etc/apt/sources.list) to point to your depot box for updates?

[root@mannysBOX manny]# rpm -qa | grep apt
apt-0.5.5cnc5-fr0.rh73.2


as you can see, apt-get works like a charm....


[root@mannysBOX manny]# uname -a
Linux mannysBOX.home.com 2.4.18-3 #1 Thu Apr 18 07:32:41 EDT 2002 i686 unknown

[root@mannysBOX manny]# apt-get update
Get:1 http://ayo.freshrpms.net redhat/7.3/i386 release [1178B]
Fetched 1178B in 0s (1299B/s)
Hit http://ayo.freshrpms.net redhat/7.3/i386/os pkglist
Hit http://ayo.freshrpms.net redhat/7.3/i386/os release
Get:1 http://ayo.freshrpms.net redhat/7.3/i386/updates pkglist [521kB]
Hit http://ayo.freshrpms.net redhat/7.3/i386/updates release
Get:2 http://ayo.freshrpms.net redhat/7.3/i386/freshrpms pkglist [129kB]
Hit http://ayo.freshrpms.net redhat/7.3/i386/freshrpms release
Hit http://ayo.freshrpms.net redhat/7.3/i386/os srclist
Get:3 http://ayo.freshrpms.net redhat/7.3/i386/updates srclist [33.0kB]
Get:4 http://ayo.freshrpms.net redhat/7.3/i386/freshrpms srclist [32.0kB]
Fetched 714kB in 18s (39.3kB/s)
Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree... Done
[root@mannysBOX manny]# uname -a
Linux mannysBOX.home.com 2.4.18-3 #1 Thu Apr 18 07:32:41 EDT 2002 i686 unknown
[root@mannysBOX manny]# apt-get dist-upgrade
Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree... Done
Calculating Upgrade... Done
The following packages will be upgraded
libao libao-devel openssh openssh-askpass openssh-askpass-gnome openssh-clients openssl openssl-devel perl perl-CGI
perl-CPAN perl-DB_File perl-NDBM_File sendmail sendmail-cf sendmail-devel sox sox-devel ucd-snmp
The following NEW packages will be installed:
perl-suidperl
19 packages upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 removed and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 12.5MB of archives.

After unpacking 421kB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n] Y
Get:1 http://ayo.freshrpms.net redhat/7.3/i386/freshrpms libao-devel 0.8.3-0.rh73.3 [26.8kB]
Get:2 http://ayo.freshrpms.net redhat/7.3/i386/freshrpms libao 0.8.3-0.rh73.3 [75.3kB]
Get:3 http://ayo.freshrpms.net redhat/7.3/i386/updates openssh-askpass-gnome 3.1p1-14 [23.2kB]
Get:4 http://ayo.freshrpms.net redhat/7.3/i386/updates openssl-devel 0.9.6b-35.7 [1224kB]
Get:5 http://ayo.freshrpms.net redhat/7.3/i386/updates openssl 0.9.6b-35.7 [1407kB]
Get:6 http://ayo.freshrpms.net redhat/7.3/i386/updates openssh-clients 3.1p1-14 [298kB]
Get:7 http://ayo.freshrpms.net redhat/7.3/i386/updates openssh-askpass 3.1p1-14 [41.4kB]
Get:8 http://ayo.freshrpms.net redhat/7.3/i386/updates openssh 3.1p1-14 [219kB]
Get:9 http://ayo.freshrpms.net redhat/7.3/i386/updates sendmail 8.11.6-27.73 [305kB]
Get:10 http://ayo.freshrpms.net redhat/7.3/i386/updates perl-CPAN 1:1.59_54-36.1.73 [102kB]
Get:11 http://ayo.freshrpms.net redhat/7.3/i386/updates perl-CGI 1:2.752-36.1.73 [162kB]
Get:12 http://ayo.freshrpms.net redhat/7.3/i386/updates perl-DB_File 1:1.75-36.1.73 [62.3kB]
Get:13 http://ayo.freshrpms.net redhat/7.3/i386/updates perl-NDBM_File 1:1.75-36.1.73 [19.8kB]
Get:14 http://ayo.freshrpms.net redhat/7.3/i386/updates perl-suidperl 1:5.6.1-36.1.73 [373kB]
Get:15 http://ayo.freshrpms.net redhat/7.3/i386/updates perl 1:5.6.1-36.1.73 [6640kB]
Get:16 http://ayo.freshrpms.net redhat/7.3/i386/updates ucd-snmp 4.2.5-8.73.1 [935kB]
Get:17 http://ayo.freshrpms.net redhat/7.3/i386/updates sendmail-cf 8.11.6-27.73 [225kB]
Get:18 http://ayo.freshrpms.net redhat/7.3/i386/updates sendmail-devel 8.11.6-27.73 [41.0kB]
Get:19 http://ayo.freshrpms.net redhat/7.3/i386/freshrpms sox 12.17.3-4.fr [162kB]
Get:20 http://ayo.freshrpms.net redhat/7.3/i386/freshrpms sox-devel 12.17.3-4.fr [134kB]
Fetched 12.5MB in 4m52s (42.7kB/s)
Executing RPM (-Uvh)...

Preparing... ########################################### [100%]
1:libao-devel ########################################### [ 5%]
2:libao ########################################### [ 10%]
3:openssh-askpass-gnome ########################################### [ 15%]
4:openssl-devel ########################################### [ 20%]
5:openssl ########################################### [ 25%]
6:openssh-clients ########################################### [ 30%]
7:openssh-askpass ########################################### [ 35%]
8:openssh ########################################### [ 40%]
9:sendmail ########################################### [ 45%]
10:perl-CPAN ########################################### [ 50%]
11:perl-CGI ########################################### [ 55%]
12:perl-DB_File ########################################### [ 60%]
13:perl-NDBM_File ########################################### [ 65%]
14:perl-suidperl ########################################### [ 70%]
15:perl ########################################### [ 75%]
16:ucd-snmp ########################################### [ 80%]
17:sendmail-cf ########################################### [ 85%]
18:sendmail-devel ########################################### [ 90%]
19:sox ########################################### [ 95%]
20:sox-devel ########################################### [100%]


all downloaded packages are kept in /var/cache/apt/archives

until you run "apt-get clean"

hope this helps,
manny

I'm the newbie that Danda was talking about. I have reviewed the suggestions and will try to make some time to tinker with it. I appreciate your assistance!

Brooks