Updating server / DA / software...

truenegative

truenegative

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Feb 16, 2006
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I need some help visualizing a way to update my server. Its about that time again, and I probably should update way more often than I do, but I try to maintain as stable of a server as possible for my clients (who can be very picky).

I am running CentOS 4.3 I believe on there. I need to update the OS packages using yum, which I can handle. What do I need to be careful with?

Here are my excluded packages: httpd* mysql* php* apache* mod_* MySQL* *ftp* exim* sendmail* php* kernel* da_*


Once yum is finished updating, I would like to update DA, apache, spamassassin, clamav, and whatever else is part of DA that would need updating. Is there anything that will check what I need to update?

Some of my clients have mentioned that they are receiving more spam lately, so I want to upgrade SA to see if that helps.

Any help is greatly appreciated. I plan to back everything up to a remote server before I begin the update process.

Thanks in advance!
 
How about the HowTo section for updating the rest ( DA )

Im not sure if yum update will work because there is nobody who confirmed my post about yum update being safe or not
 
skruf said:
Hey,

Yum works fine for us on CentOS4.4...

Wael has a really good update script that you can find here:

http://www.directadmin.com/forum/showthread.php?threadid=12099

Just follow the directions and you can choose what you want to update.

David
Click to expand...

So i can use yum update on my server without it making a mess of DirectAdmin?
Ill give it a go and find out :) after making a complete backup offcourse
 
Hey,

If you are going to use yum, as mentioned above, you should have the "exclude" statement in your yum config file. Otherwise things may get updated that shouldn't.

Sorry if I didn't make that clear.

David
 
Yeah just as skruf said, my excluded packages are below here.


tarionyx said:

Here are my excluded packages: httpd* mysql* php* apache* mod_* MySQL* *ftp* exim* sendmail* php* kernel* da_*
Click to expand...


Hey skruf, do you update your kernel? Do you think I might have issues updating the packages to 4.4 but leaving the kernel back at 4.2ish ? As jlasman, I think, said that he updated his kernel manually, which is probably what I want to do. I'm just waiting to get kvm access before I attempt that :)

Thanks for the links!
 
oh and that script from wael looks pretty good, but i will probably have to pick it apart to update things anyways since I'm running centos on 64 bit :)
 
skruf said:
Hey,

If you are going to use yum, as mentioned above, you should have the "exclude" statement in your yum config file. Otherwise things may get updated that shouldn't.

Sorry if I didn't make that clear.

David
Click to expand...
I thought DA made an exclude list on install?

Or am i wrong?
 
tarionyx said:
I need some help visualizing a way to update my server. Its about that time again, and I probably should update way more often than I do, but I try to maintain as stable of a server as possible for my clients (who can be very picky).

I am running CentOS 4.3 I believe on there. I need to update the OS packages using yum, which I can handle. What do I need to be careful with?

Here are my excluded packages: httpd* mysql* php* apache* mod_* MySQL* *ftp* exim* sendmail* php* kernel* da_*


Once yum is finished updating, I would like to update DA, apache, spamassassin, clamav, and whatever else is part of DA that would need updating. Is there anything that will check what I need to update?

Some of my clients have mentioned that they are receiving more spam lately, so I want to upgrade SA to see if that helps.

Any help is greatly appreciated. I plan to back everything up to a remote server before I begin the update process.

Thanks in advance!
Click to expand...

And dont forget to update your kernel too. Very important!
 
Re: Re: Updating server / DA / software...

Hey,

tarionyx said:
Hey skruf, do you update your kernel? Do you think I might have issues updating the packages to 4.4 but leaving the kernel back at 4.2ish ? [/B]
Click to expand...

Yes, we update the kernels... We do it separately from the normal yum updates.

Hard to say if you'd have problems leaving the kernel untouched... I would think you would be OK just updating everything else, but YMMV!

David
 
Some notes:

I don't recall that DA puts an exclude into yum.conf; I do know that it doesn't automaticallly start yum update to run nightly.

If you'd run yum update nightlly you'd be at version 4.4 by now, and not at 4.3 :) .

You can probably safely update kernels automatically if you know for a fact you're not running anything custom in your kernel (special kernel modules for special hardware, for example) and that it's a standard CentOS install.

But if you break it, you have to go to the data center and fix it.

yum is only part of the install.

Then there's customapache. Which usuallly works seamlessly.

Usually, but not often enough that we just walk away without watching. If it breaks you do need some sysadmin skills to complete the update.

And then there's the stuff not included in customapache.

I haven't studied All-in-1 yet, but I need to :) .

Jeff
 
jlasman said:
Some notes:

I don't recall that DA puts an exclude into yum.conf;
Click to expand...
I guess it depends on your DA versions ;)
Here is how the relevant yum.comf line looks like on one of our CentOS boxes (less than 1 y.o.):
Code: 
[root@pe2850 ~]# tail -1 /etc/yum.conf
exclude=apache* httpd* mod_* mysql* MySQL* da_* *ftp* exim* sendmail* php*

You can probably safely update kernels automatically if you know for a fact you're not running anything custom in your kernel (special kernel modules for special hardware, for example) and that it's a standard CentOS install.
Click to expand...
Even if it's out of the box kernel, I don't think that's such a good idea.

But if you break it, you have to go to the data center and fix it.
Click to expand...
Not necessarily. You can just ask the techs to boot the server with the old kernel.

BTW, after updating the kernel, you can configure grub to reboot with the new kernel just once. This way if you reboot and the server can't load the new kernel, just fire up a reboot ticket and you will be up with the old kernel in no time.

This is one more reason to avoid unattended kernel updates :)
 
Ah cool, I have KVM access so I can boot the older kernel if something goes wrong. I'm actually doing the updates right now.

For some reason, my system backup via DA didn't work. It hangs up in the backup log at /var/www, and I never get a full backup. I made a list of things to back up, tarred them, and i'm transferring them over to my backup server, but any ideas as to why my system backup might be hanging?
 
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