[TriLUG] Re: large-scale patch rollouts?

[Neil Roeth]

On Sep 16, James Manning (jmm at sublogic.com) wrote:
 > > I manually upgrade my Debian server with apt on a weekly basis.  The only
 > > think I'll cron is the email to remind me to do it, or 'apt-get update' and
 > > a dry run of 'apt-get upgrade' to tell me what all has an updated to be
 > > installed.
 > 
 > Sam here.  I'd never automate actual installation.  I'm far too
 > scared for anything so cavalier :)
 > 
 > jmm at sublogic:/home/jmm% sudo crontab -l
 > Password:
 > 0 2 * * * apt-get -qq update && apt-get -qq --dry-run upgrade

I do

apt-get update && apt-get -dy dist-upgrade

so that it downloads the packages during the cron job.  Then, when I manually
do the upgrade, it starts immediately, because all the packages are already on
my hard disk.  This is especially helpful on my laptop - I can do the upgrade
even when disconnected.

BTW, notice that I do a dist-upgrade rather than upgrade.  This will get ALL
packages, including new dependencies, so nothing ever gets held back.  This
works because I run Debian unstable, so a dist-upgrade is effectively the same
as an upgrade, except for this one (desireable) difference.

-- 
Neil Roeth