I have read a couple old threads here on updates for servers, and I am looking for some mechanics to getting the actual updates done. I don't want automatic updates; I want to control when and what gets updated.
First I have to determine that a particular server needs updates. I suppose a daily script that would run "yum check-updates' and emails me the results could work, but then I would only want the email IF there was something to update, at my limited use of this option does not show anything to trigger a notify on changes. Does anyone know of a script that would do this?
Then there is the actual update. I learned long ago NOT to run yum over an SSH connection, as WHEN that connection breaks in the middle of an update, you can have quite a problem to clean up. All I have done todate is to start vncserver and connect via vnc to then run yum. I can even drop the vnc connection and come back later to check results. I have considered running yum disconnected (? when you end a command with &) and log the results to a file that you check later. What are practical approaches to this? I only have a few servers here to manage.