Obtaining and Installing RedHat Linux Updates

Jerry Winegarden

Revised 10-20-00

You should install updates of RedHat Linux packages when they are available. Updates fix bugs, close security holes, etc. There are four ways that you can become aware of available updates:

e-mail notification from redhat-watch-list email list

To receive notifications of security alerts, bug fixes, and updates for Red Hat Linux you should subscribe to: redhat-watch-list@redat.com. To subscribe:

E-mail messages received from redhat-watch-list@redhat.com will look like: 

From: bugzilla@redhat.com
To: redhat-watch-list@redhat.com
Subject: [RHBA-2000:091-04] New emacs packages are available for RedHat Linux 7
------------------------------------------------------
	Red Hat, Inc. Bug Fix Advisory

			or

From: bugzilla@redhat.com
To: redhat-watch-list@redhat.com
CC: security-alert@linuxsecurity.com, bugtraq@securityfocus.com, linux-security@redhat.com
Subject: [RHSA-2000:091-04] Updated gnupg packages available`
------------------------------------------------------
	Red Hat, Inc. Security Advisory
This announcement will tell you the package name(s), including version numbers that are available for update. It will also explain the reasons for the update or the bugs fixed. You may not have every package from Red Hat installed, so you may or may not need to install this update. However, this does tell you to look at the available updates and what you have installed to see if you need to obtain and install the update.

Note: the mail notification of updates often show up a few hours before the actual updated packages appear on the Red Hat mirror sites. Connect to a mirror site (e.g.: ftp metalab.unc.edu/pub/linux/redhat/updates/7.0/i386 or ftp ftp.dulug.duke.edu/mirror/redhat/updates/7.0/i386 for Dukies) and look: ls packagename*. If it's there, then get it: mget packagename*. It it's not there yet, check later, it will be.

up2date program

up2date is a utility from Red Hat that will connect to Red Hat's server, query the list of available updates from Red Hat, check your list of currently installed packages (rpms), and download and install any updates that you don't have yet installed. It requires that you either be officially registered for support from RedHat (pay $), or you can be "informally" registered and you can get some updates. The informal registration takes place the first time you try to run up2date. Currently, up2date will only contact Red Hat's server for updates, not the mirror sites.

To run up2date, you must be logged in as root in a window (su to root will do).

Note: it doesn't always seem to work - many times it thinks you are "Up to Date" when you are not. You can always verify that by looking at bugzilla update announcements, listing your current rpm's (rpm -qa | more, or rpm -qa | grep packagename), and looking in the updates directories @ Red Hat or the mirrors.

rhnsd - Red Hat's Automated System Update Daemon

Installing the "up2date" package, installs and sets for automatic startup a daemon process called: rhnsd.

Sources for Red Hat Linux updates

Updates are available from RedHat directly - just click on the RedHat "Errata" icon on your desktop and Netscape Navigator will take you to the correct web page at RedHat. After you obtain the updated packages from RedHat, you will have to install them.

To be informed of the availability of updates and security alerts, subscribe to the following e-mail lists:

To subscribe to the above lists:

  1. mail to:
    redhat-announce-request@redhat.com
    redhat-watch-request@redhat.com

  2. Subject: subscribe
  3. Follow reply instructions to followup subscription message