Re: up2date - package update dependency

Guy Waugh wrote:
> I'm facing this situation at the moment. We can update most of our 
> systems without having to have major service outages, but a few 
> critical machines (database/NFS servers etc.) need well-publicised 
> outages for us to apply updates.
>
> This has got me thinking that if, by some bizarre chance, the updates 
> break software on the servers and I have to roll back to previous 
> versions, what would be the best way to do that? I'm thinking either:
> * Go to backup tape and restore the entire operating system, or at 
> least all the files owned by the packages that have been upgraded 
> (would need a separate exercise to list all the files owned by the 
> updated packages). Not sure if this would work that cleanly. 
> Alternatively,
> * Force-install the old packages over the top of the new packages. Not 
> really sure if this would work that cleanly either...
Depends, I suppose on how much has changed, but if it's not much then 
"rpm -Uvh --oldpackage ..." will cleanly install an older RPM.

If there's a lot that's changed -- for example when RHEL4.5 comes out -- 
then I make sure it's reasonably well tested on less critical systems 
because I upgrade the critical ones.   Compared to some people on the 
list that's a fairly cavalier attitude -- they do proper testing on a 
full backup server so as to avoid those embarrassing incidents where an 
unexpected bug causes an unpleasant break in service.

jch

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