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Cross-Distro Remote Package Administration?

Posted by kdawson on from the i-patch dept.

tobiasly writes "I administer several Ubuntu desktops and numerous CentOS servers. One of the biggest headaches is keeping them up-to-date with each distro's latest bugfix and security patches. I currently have to log in to each system, run the appropriate apt-get or yum command to list available updates, determine which ones I need, then run the appropriate install commands. I'd love to have a distro-independent equivalent of the Red Hat Network where I could do all of this remotely using a web-based interface. PackageKit seems to have solved some of the issues regarding cross-distro package maintenance, but their FAQ explicitly states that remote administration is not a goal of their project. Has anyone put together such a system?"

3 of 209 comments (clear)

  1. Tools exist by PeterBrett · · Score: 5, Informative
    1. Create a local package repository for each distro.
    2. Set apt/yum to point at only the local repository.
    3. Create a cron job on each box to automatically update daily.
    4. When you want to push a package update out to all boxes, copy it from the public repository to the local one.
    5. Profit!
    --
    Pirate Party UK
  2. Re:You don't want it by galorin · · Score: 5, Informative

    Depending on how uniform your servers are, keep one version of CentOS and one version of Ubuntu running in a VM, and have these notify you when updates are available. When updates are available, test against these VMs, and do the local repository thing suggested by another person here. Do one system at a time to make sure something doesn't kill everything at once.

    Web based apps with admin privs are fine as long as they're only accessable via the intranet, strongly passworded, and no one else knows they're there. If you need to do remotely, VPN in to the site, and SSH into each box. You're an Administrtor, start administratorizing. Some things just shouldn't be automated.

  3. yum-updatesd is meant for that by MrMr · · Score: 5, Informative

    1) yum -e whateveryoudontneed
    2) chkconfig yum-updatesd on
    3) Make sure do_update = yes, download_deps = yes, etc are set in yum-updatesd.conf
    4) /etc/init.d/yum-updatesd start
    This makes your yum system self-updating.