Updating Linux

By Joshua Erdman
Digital Foundation, inc.

Notice we are talking about UPDATES here not upgrades. Updates are important to ensure your Linux OS has the most recent security fixes. It is funny but I must note, that I have never had a Windows Server hacked, but I have ran into 3 different hacked Linux boxes. Of course the opposite can be said about Windows boxes with viruses and spyware.

Up2date

UP2DATE is the Fedora Core update program. It connects to a Fedora update server and compares the version of all the packages installed on your Linux box to a database to determine a need for security updates. If any are found, it will download the updated packages and fix each individual package.

Info on UP2DATE

From a command line run: man up2date to get a list of commands on how to use it. up2date --help doesn't seem to work like you would expect for my FC2 box. Typically you need to run up2date --register the first time to get your Linux box registered. The just run up2date -u to update your packages.

UP2DATE Settings

By default UP2DATE does not update the Linux Kernel. You need to change the configuration to do that. That can be done with the command: up2date --configure
you will find 'kernel' and 'kernel-modules' under pkgsToInstallNotUp. This is where you can add packages that you want to protect from updates (especially if you are running a mission critical system).

Recommended Articles:
Installing FC3
RedHat Package Manager
Linux Security
Installing RH 9.0

Article last reviewed: 02/12/2005

Created by: Digital Foundation, inc.

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