We are trying to update few yum packages but need to ensure that the packages which need to reboot are to be excluded. Example : There are close to 500-1000 packages and I need to exclude kernel packages as we cannot update without security approval. Is there any option in yum to handle this scenario?
2 Answers
RHEL and derivatives have needs-restarting in the yum-utils package, but that can only give you an after-the-fact evaluation. However, it is a python script, so we can peek inside to find the following hard-coded list of packages that will make it suggest a reboot:
# For which package updates we should recommend a reboot
# Taken from https://access.redhat.com/solutions/27943
REBOOTPKGS = ['kernel', 'glibc', 'linux-firmware', 'systemd', 'udev',
'openssl-libs', 'gnutls', 'dbus']
Note that this list might not be exhaustive. I'd need to double-check if RedHat recommends to their paying and supported customers to restart according to this heuristic when doing unattended updates, that would give me a bit more confidence.
answered Feb 8, 2018 at 18:32
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Quick check .. so post installing yum-utils .. need to run needs-restarting to check list of packages which require restart or reboot? Feb 8, 2018 at 19:25
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Exclude a package from update : Edit /etc/yum.conf → add one or more "exclude" lines. https://tecadmin.net/exclude-packages-from-yum-update/
exclude=kernel*
Note : The wildcard ( * ) is important.
answered Feb 9, 2018 at 18:26
yum-cron?), there's a helper tool that "knows" if a reboot will be needed, the name of which I don't recall right now. That helper is a python script and contains a hardcoded list of packages that will require reboot. We can't know if that list is complete, but it seems good enough for RHEL.yum-utils, quoting access.redhat.com/solutions/27943 (paywall) and listing 'kernel', 'glibc', 'linux-firmware', 'systemd', 'udev', 'openssl-libs', 'gnutls', 'dbus'. Bit surprised about gnutls and openssl-libs, I've got to say.