[olug] urpmi

[Adam Haeder]

As far as automatically updating your linux boxes, I've been using 
AutoUpdate 
(http://www.mat.univie.ac.at/~gerald/ftp/autoupdate/index.html). It's a 
perl script that will hit an ftp or http server of your choice and 
download new rpms and install them. Very small and very configurable.

I've designated one box as the ftp server where I keep all the new 
packages for the various linux boxes I manage. When an advisory comes out, 
I download the updated package to the ftp server, and then let the boxes 
update themselves (when the program 'autodld' runs overnight through cron) 
or I can manually run it from each box to upgrade asap.

If you have a linux box that you want all the new updates installed 
automatically (like WinXP), just install autoupdate and make your 
/etc/autoupdate.d/redhat.dld look like this:

Host=mirror.cs.wisc.edu
DldAll=0
FTPRetry=2
FTPWait=10
DldRecurse=0
Passive=1
Dir=/pub/mirrors/linux/redhat/updates/#DistVersion#/en/os/

Of course this assumes you use RedHat, and you want to use 
mirror.cs.wisc.edu as your ftp server (it's a fast mirror, but it's always 
a few weeks behind the main redhat updates site in new packages).

Then create a symlink in /etc/cron.daily to the autodld program

# cd /etc/cron.daily
# ln -s /usr/sbin/autodld

Then just leave your box on all the time :-). You can manually run the 
update by running 'autodld' as root. This will update everything except 
your kernel. Enjoy.

-- 
Adam Haeder
Technical Coordinator, AIM Institute
adamh at omaha.org
(402) 345-5025 x115