Re: kernel security patches

Carla Schroder writes: 

> I'm so confused. :) And feeling like a bit of a dunce, after all these years 
> of using Linux. How do distributions handle applying kernel security patches? 
> Like Debian and Red Hat? None of my machines have kernel sources. I use 
> up2date on Red Hat boxes, and of course have the usual security sources in my 
> Debian sources.list. So are my kernels getting updated or not? 
> 

I believe that it greatly depends upon the versions which you're updating 
and how your preferences are set. 

I believe, and this is after much head scratching, that by default up2date 
on Redhat versions I've used (7.3 and older) will *not* update your kernel, 
even if it does download the kernel rpms.  I have no experience with Debian. 

Some quick googling on the subject yielded: 

http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?threadid=194098
http://www.redhat.com/support/resources/howto/kernel-upgrade/ 

Hope this is helpful.