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<TITLE>The Answer Guy 36:
Automated Updates
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<H4>"The Linux Gazette...<I>making Linux just a little more fun!</I>"</H4>
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<H1><A NAME="answer">
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<H4>By James T. Dennis,
<a href="mailto:answerguy@ssc.com">answerguy@ssc.com</a><BR>
Starshine Technical Services,
<A HREF="http://www.starshine.org/">http://www.starshine.org/</A>
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<!-- begin 96 -->
<H3 align="left"><img src="../../gx/dennis/qbubble.gif" height="50" width="60"
alt="(?) " border="0">
Automated Updates
</H3>
<p><strong>From Josh on Fri, 25 Dec 1998
</strong></p>
<!-- ::
Automated Updates
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
:: -->
<P><STRONG><IMG SRC="../../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" ALT="(?)"
HEIGHT="28" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0"
>
A quick suggestion for the updates question.
</STRONG></P>
<P><STRONG>
A student at georgia tech has written two excellent
scripts, autorpm and logwatch. Autorpm will automatically
keep your system up to date with the current redhat updates.
Autorpm can be found at ftp.kaybee.org. It saves a lot of
work on the system admins part.
</STRONG></P>
<P><STRONG>
He was going to add them to the LSM, but I'm
not sure if he has yet.
</STRONG></P>
<P><STRONG>
Josh
</STRONG></P>
<BLOCKQUOTE><IMG SRC="../../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" alt="(!)"
HEIGHT="28" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0"
>
There's also an '<TT>autoup.sh</TT>' script for
<A HREF="http://www.debian.org/">Debian</A> systems.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
I'd suggest that these systems be used with considerable
trepidation (if at all). However, they do make sense for
some cases. For example I'm pretty sure you can configure
these to watch some internal server.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
So, as the sysadmin for a medium to large installation you
could manually grab and test updates --- or set up a
"sacrificial" system to automatically grab them. Then,
when you've vetted the updates you can post the RPM or
.deb files to your internal server where you're client
systems would pick it up.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
There's also a package called '<tt>cfengine</tt>' by Mark Burgess
which can help with various configuration details that
might need to be tuned after any sort of automated update
or software/configuration file distribution. (The old
fashioned Unix way to automate updates to client systems
is to use '<tt>rdist</tt>' --- preferably over '<tt>ssh</tt>'
for better security).
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
'cfengine' is the "awk of configuration management."
Basically a 'cfengine' script is a series of class
descriptions, assertions and corrective actions. So
you can express policies like: All
<A HREF="http://www.redhat.com/">Red Hat</A> Linux systems
running 2.0.30 kernel in this DNS subdomain and in this NIS
netgroup, on any Tuesday (a series of class specifications)
should have less than 100Mb of log files under <TT>/var/log</TT>
(an assertion) and should have more that 40Mb of free space
thereunder (another assertion) OR we should rotate the
logs, removing the really old ones and compressing the other
non-current ones (a corrective action).
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
'cfengine' is an interesting project I'd like to see the
security features beefed up considerably and I'd like to
see it undergo a comprehensive security audit (by the
<A HREF="http://www.openbsd.org/">OpenBSD</A> and/or Linux SecAudit teams).
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
Naturally 'cfengine' is one of those tools with which
you can shoot off your foot, at about the HIP! So you
should be <EM>very</EM> careful when you first start playing with it.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
More info on that package can be found at its canonical
home page: <A HREF="http://www.iu.hioslo.no/cfengine"
>http://www.iu.hioslo.no/cfengine</A>
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
Kirk Bauer (autorpm's author) doesn't seem to maintain
a web page touting it's features. So you'll have to
grab the file via FTP.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
There's also a package called '<tt>rpmwatch</tt>' which is
listed at: <A HREF="http://www.iaehv.nl/users/grimaldo/info/scripts"
>http://www.iaehv.nl/users/grimaldo/info/scripts</A>
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
More info on autoup.sh can be found in the Debian FAQ:
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
<A HREF="http://www.debian.org/doc/FAQ/debian-faq-10.html"
>http://www.debian.org/doc/FAQ/debian-faq-10.html</A>
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
... or directly at these sites:
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
<A HREF="http://www.taz.net.au/autoup"
>http://www.taz.net.au/autoup</A>
<A HREF="http://csanders.vicnet.net.au/autoup"
>http://csanders.vicnet.net.au/autoup</A>
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<!-- sig -->
<!-- end 96 -->
<!--startcut ======================================================= -->
<P> <hr> <P>
<H5 align="center"><a href="http://www.linuxgazette.com/ssc.copying.html"
>Copyright ©</a> 1999, James T. Dennis
<BR>Published in <I>The Linux Gazette</I> Issue 36 January 1999</H5>
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