[CentOS] updating without rebooting

Sun Mar 27 14:25:25 UTC 2011
Robert Heller <heller at deepsoft.com>

At Sun, 27 Mar 2011 07:56:19 -0400 CentOS mailing list <centos at centos.org> wrote:

> 
> On Fri, Mar 25, 2011 at 06:59:26AM -0400, Robert Heller wrote:
> > Yes, you only *need* to reboot to pick up a new kernel.  Unlike
> > MS-Windows, none of the other updates *require* a reboot.  Note: if
> 
> Warning, though: there's a big difference between *need* and *should*.

Oh, quite understood.

> 
> > glibc (or other widely used shared libraries) is updated it (they)
> > won't get picked up unless *ALL* of the processes that use it (them)
> > are restarted.  
> 
> Other changes may only take effect once a reboot occurs.  In other cases
> you may end up with some programs using new setting and others using
> old settings (eg tzdata; if you've just had a new daylight-savings rule
> change then updating your tzdata rpms will cause newly started programs
> to use the new rules, but old programs to still use the old).  It's not
> just limited to glibc.
> 
> So, depending on the packages being updated, I normally _recommend_ a
> reboot.  But, being a sensible OS, you can reboot at the time of your
> choosing, not at patch time :-)

Yes, definately.

> 

-- 
Robert Heller             -- 978-544-6933 / heller at deepsoft.com
Deepwoods Software        -- http://www.deepsoft.com/
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