[CentOS] Advice on upgrading packages

Sun Mar 26 16:59:04 UTC 2006
Les Mikesell <lesmikesell at gmail.com>

On Sun, 2006-03-26 at 00:51, Fajar Priyanto wrote:

> Regarding packages updates using yum, all this time I only upgrade packages 
> that I think is important, but also at the same time is having little risk of 
> breaking my installation. Such as httpd, ssh, etc.
> 
> But there are many packages that waits to be updated such as lvm, mdadm, etc. 
> I'm worried that it will break my installation (web and mail server). Like 
> the saying "if it ain't broken, don't fix it".

Note that the Centos team and their upstream distribution have
exactly the same attitude.  That is, if it wasn't broken, there
wouldn't be an update available. 

> Is there any pitfall that I should avoid of when upgrading packages using yum? 
> Or is it completely save to let yum update the machine automatically?

There is always a small change that something will go wrong
when you change anything, but in this case the chance is very
small because everything is well tested before making it into
the Centos repositories - and you have to weigh that against
the larger chance of things going wrong if you continue to
run software with known problems.  You may not want the
machine to update automatically, but if not you should do
manual updates frequently and generally take all of them
when they are available.

-- 
  Les Mikesell
   lesmikesell at gmail.com