How to activate automatic updates on Fedora 9-17

Now Fedora comes with “PackageKit”, a graphical tool for automated updates. However, the packagekit updates need the approval from the user and also a graphical interface.

If you need to keep updated at all cost, and you don’t have enough time to verify the graphical PackageKit applet, maybe you’ll need yum-cron

yum-cron is good for unattended servers or “init 3” server, i mean, servers without a graphical interface.

If there is no human control on updates, a badly update could be installed (its rare, but happens)… However the security risk of running without updates, is worst.


Commands…

For PackageKit removal:

su -c “yum erase PackageKit”

For yum-cron installation:

$ su –
# yum install yum-cron
# chkconfig yum-cron on
# service yum-cron start

And… That’s all. Everyday, about 4am, your system will be updated. Remember to keep the server/computer connected to the internet all the day.

Check this file: /etc/sysconfig/yum-cron if you need to configure the yum options, by example, adding things like –skip-broken in order to avoid whole update fail on dependency error.

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