I was talking with a friend about yum, and he was complaining the the default for the cron job does automatic updating, which isn't safe. He suggested download only. I came up with a replacement that downloads any new updates, and then outputs the new files. The output of the cron job will be sent as an e-mail to root in most cases. It is written in bash like the old script, but unlike the old script requires date(coreutils), find(findutils), and tr(coreutils) to process the information. It should be a drop in replacement. Yes, I do realize this could be simplified by modifying yum to doing most of the work, or by just taking the raw output from yum. The script runs, you receive the e-mail, and you verify it is safe to update the packages in the last, and then you would need to run "yum update yum ; yum update" on the server as root. Then restart any services as necessary, and fix any problems that crop up. I think this or something like it should replace the current default cron job script. A configuration option could even be made to do download only or automatic updates in the same script. I welcome any improves to the script or the idea in general. http://proton.cygnusx-1.org/ydo
