12.6. Updating on Red Hat Linux

Red Hat offers a service to users of its Linux distribution, called the Red Hat Network. One of its features allows you to have updated RPM packages automatically installed on your system, to fix bugs or security holes that are found in the packages supplied with the distribution. If you are running Red Hat Linux, there will be a form at the bottom of the main page under the heading Red Hat Network Options that you can use to configure the automatic installation of updated packages. Before it can be used, you must have signed up with the Red Hat Network and registered the system you are running Webmin on.

The form actually serves two purposes—changing the settings for the update daemon that periodically checks for new packages and forcing an immediate update. The fields on the form are:

Automatically check for updates? If this option is set to Yes, the rhnsd daemon that checks for updates will be configured to start at boot time. It will also be started immediately when the Save and Apply button is clicked, if it is not currently running. Setting it to No will stop the daemon and prevent it from being started at boot time.

Checking interval When the automatic update daemon is enabled, the number of minutes between checks for new packages is determined by this option.

Proxy server URL for downloading If your system cannot connect directly to the Red Hat website, you will need to set this option to the URL of a web proxy server. It must be formatted like this: http://proxy.company.com:8000/.

Skip packages matching This option is for entering a list of patterns for package names that you do not want automatically updated. By default it prevents kernel updates from being automatically installed.

The Save and Apply button will save your settings and start or stop the rhnsd daemon as necessary. The Save and Check Now button will do the same thing, but will also run the up2date –u command to immediately check for and download new packages. All output from the command will be displayed so that you can see which packages are being updated.