what has 'yum update' done?

[Matthew Miller]

On Sun, Jul 14, 2013 at 12:51:05AM +0200, lee wrote:
> >> The package management tools in Debian send you emails about changes
> >> like that, even about very little changes, when packages are being
> >> replaced by more recent versions.  Maybe this could be done in Fedora as
> >> well?
> > You could try using yum-cron.
> Automatic updates?  I'd rather not do that since it sometimes seems
> advisable to reboot after an update.

It's often advisable, but usually only because the updates may not take
effect on already-loaded code and not all updates can restart all relevant
services. So, applying updates and not restarting should be no worse than
not restarting at all.

> 
> > Or, if you're interested in hacking a little
> > bit, you could adapt
> > ftp://linst.bu.edu/updates/monde/SRPMS/bulinux-autoupdate-1.1.8-bu50.7.src.rpm
> > which I made for Boston University Linux back in the day. It would be kind
> > of cool to see it made more generic (and possibly integrated with yum-cron).
> > It's designed to give a sysadmin-friendly e-mail report of all packages
> > updates.
> It's not simply about knowing which packages have been or are to be
> updated --- that I can see when running 'yum update'.  It's about
> information what has actually changed when a package was updated.

The problem here is that we have an overwhelming number of updates in
Fedora. It would be very time-consuming to read them all. If you're
interested or know you need this level of detail on your system, it's best
to become familiar with the package names and check manually when you see an
important package being updated.


> The package maintainer knows what changed, and it doesn't hurt to add a
> short note like this when they're making a new version of a package.  In
> case there was a bigger change, the email could always suggest what
> documentation to look at.

Well, going to back to my first post in the thread, the package maintainer
doesn't always know what changes are going to affect users. They should have
a general idea, but software is complicated. 


> Why not make it one of the great features of Fedora? 

This update information _is_ produced. It's just not always done as well as
it could be, and the tools don't make it available in the way you'd like
right now.

> Then take it to the next step and make systemd send mails in case a
> service couldn't be started or has issues, and optionally have it send a
> mail after booting has completed with a list of services that were
> started.

Generally, I don't think "more things generating e-mail" is the future of
systems administration. :)


-- 
Matthew Miller  ☁☁☁  Fedora Cloud Architect  ☁☁☁  <mattdm at fedoraproject.org>