[CentOS] Understanding yum automatic upgrades

Tue Apr 5 23:46:55 UTC 2011
email builder <emailbuilder88 at yahoo.com>

> >   Sorry if this is  somewhat naive, but I'm a little confused as to what the 


> > criteria is  for that which will get upgraded automatically by yum and what 
>will 
>
> >  not.
> > 
> >   I see in our logwatch messages from time to time  that yum upgraded a bunch 
>of 
>
> > stuff, but I also notice that yum will not  upgrade other packages at all 
>(easy 
>
> > example is clamav, but there are  others).
> > 
> >   Can someone explain or point me to where I can  read about the distinction 

> > between what is and is not subjected to  automatic upgrade?
> > 
> 
> Automatic upgrade (if "yum upgrade" is run),  will upgrade all newer rpm 
> packages that are in *enabled* repositories. If  you installed from 
> external repository that you keep disabled, those  packages will not be 
> automatically  upgraded.

Well, as I mentioned, yum-updatesd is running and doing the automatic updates.  
I'm specifically referring to the automatic updates and not manual command line 
updates by me.

But assuming that yum-updatesd does the same thing as "yum upgrade" (how do I 
confirm this?), then the outstanding question is how to figure out why certain 
packages are not being updated.

To take my easy example, clamav, when I need to update clamav, I have to go to 
the command line and do a "yum upgrade clamav" and it works as expected.  
Doesn't that mean its repo is enabled?  If so, why isn't yum-updatesd updating 
it for me?  If not, how do I find which repo it's coming from so I can enable 
it?  (yum info just says "installed" for the "Repo" field).

TIA!