Linux: Fedora Core question

Factual Questions
1

I’m working with a few computer systems that are running Fedora Core 3. So far, I’ve been using yum -update to individually update them from the net. This works, but it’s a slow and inefficient process when there are so many machines.

My question is: Is there a way to merge all the new updates into the Fedora Core 3 install DVD so they’ll be installed in place of the old ones?

If not, can I download all the updated packages and put them on a DVD, then somehow force yum to update directly from there instead of from the net?

Thanks!

2

I don’t know about updating the install dvd, but have you considered a local yum repository? You still have to update the machines, but you can download the packages beforehand. The individual updates will be a lot faster. It should work from a dvd, but I think a local server is a lot more convenient, if possible.

3

one possibility is to create a script that would run the updates on it own, so you just logged on and ran the script. I’m not 100% sure of how to do that, but i can try to figure it out if no one with a better idea comes along.

4

If you want to install all updates automatically, you could just setup a cronjob to do it. E.g.



0 3 * * * /usr/bin/yum -update

That would run yum -update every morning at 3AM.

5

Thanks, kellner, that’s just what I was looking for. But if I use that method:

  1. How can I make yum update from a DVD instead of a local file server? (A network server, while great, is unfortunately not an option right now) Do I just edit yum.conf and make the URL point to file://(dvd mountpoint)?

  2. I suppose I’d need to first download the updates before I can put them on a DVD, but there are way too many packages available online. Can I do a yum list to see what packages I currently have and download their updates from a Fedora mirror site?

Or does Fedora come with a better way of downloading required updates and saving them to another drive? (e.g. maybe yum can download all the required updates and not immediately apply them?)

Aserrann and friedo, thank you, but it’s not so much having to run yum that bothers me, it’s just that it takes a long time to download all the updates from the net. If I can download the updates once and put them on a DVD for the other machines, that’d be enough.