how reliable is regularly scheduled yum updates on production servers?

[lkbryant]

i have a dilemma, i just can't trust yum update to run scheduled automatically in the fear of server going down

am i being overly paranoid?

should i trust yum or have anyone had their server go down before through yum update?

 

[scsi]

I usually just run that stuff manually. But I dont see what it would cause problems with. Are you piping output to your mail so you can at least see what it did?

 

[nobaloney]

We've done it automatically on our own CentOS servers for some time now. Once you've set up the exclude list you shouldn't have any problems.

Note that if you use RedHat rather than CentOS there's a possibility this could be less safe.

Why? Because since CentOS doesn't build and distribute through their own Yum repositories until a day or two later than the RedHat ones are built, that's long enough for them to find out if there's an error in the Red Hat ones, and delay until fixed.

If you run Red Hat Enterprise Linux but want whatever this minor safety net is worth, you can still update through yum repositories, but not if you want to keep your Red Hat support, for whatever it's worth.

Note that if your running a dedicated server in a data center that supplies it's own yum repository, then they might be delaying for the same reason, and you could already have a safety net.

Jeff

 

[floyd]

Just to add to the list, I also run yum automatically and never had a problem.

Also yum already keeps a log. /var/log/yum.log. You don't have to pipe it to mail.

 

[lkbryant]

are the default exclude list by directadmin okay? or would i have to modify them?

i think part of this paranoia comes from the fact that previously, directadmin did not come with a correct set of exclude list (it was long time ago.....)

 

[nobaloney]

We've used the default list for some time now; your mileage may vary.

Note that DirectAdmin includes some that don't have to be in there unless you may accidentally try to do some installs you shouldn't updates don't try to update anything that's not installed, and DirectAdmin lists in the exclude line a few RPM designators for RPMs that aren't installed.

Jeff

 

[truenegative]

I usually run it once a month manually...It's easy enough to do that for me

However, I haven't updated the kernel in a very long time (611 days uptime, to be exact lol).

 

[lkbryant]

so to conclude this matter,

what are my chances of system being rendered useless after a yum update -y ?

it's centos 5 btw

 

[nobaloney]

That depends a lot on how your system is set up, your exclude list, any customizations, etc.

It works for us but that doesn't mean I'm going to take responsibility following my advice and pointers on this forum breaks your server.

Perhaps someone else is willing to resond and take responsibility but I think that would be foolish. You can certainly hire one of us in the third-party support business to look at your system, and even run it the first time; we guarantee our work and I'm sure many other support services offered here include the same guarantee.

Jeff