[CentOS] yum update in background

Wed Oct 19 21:36:32 UTC 2005
Les Mikesell <lesmikesell at gmail.com>

On Wed, 2005-10-19 at 12:53, Robert wrote:
> maybe i should clarify...
> 
> i am ssh'ing into a bash shell on a CentOS 4.1 server at a datacenter. it is
> just a backup dns server and so if i lose after a reboot, ill be ok.
> 
> my access connection can go up and down at times so i was hoping that i
> could do a 
> 
> yum -y update &
> 
> and later just come back and reboot it into 4.2
> 
> good idea or not? if not, please explain and thanks

An assortment of things will break between the time the update
happens and the reboot.  I'm not sure what, but at least my cacti
graphs stopped updating and web services stopped working. 

> if i have to, ill install screen, yet will this simple yum update idea
> work???

With screen you wouldn't put it in the background.  If you
have several machines in the location with reliable connections
between them you would only have to run screen on one of them
with ssh sessions out to the others and you'd still be able
to disconnect and reconnect.  I prefer to do this from a box
running X with vnc enabled, but you get the same effect of being
able to get back to long-running commands.

-- 
  Les Mikesell
    lesmikesell at gmail.com