Re: [gentoo-user] emerge --update behavior

[Alan McKinnon]

On Sun, 01 Jan 2012 19:24:35 -0500
Michael Orlitzky <michael@××××××××.com> wrote:

> On 01/01/2012 07:09 PM, Neil Bothwick wrote:
> > On Sun, 01 Jan 2012 18:07:45 -0500, Michael Orlitzky wrote:
> >
> >> Usually it's because a world update wants to do both trivial
> >> version bumps and replace major software at the same time. I can't
> >> take a server down for an hour in the middle of the day to update
> >> Apache, but I can bump timezone-data, sure.
> >
> > Why would you need to take it down? All you need to do is restart
> > Apache after the update.
> >
>
> I have to test, like, 200 websites to make sure they still work.
> Something /always/ breaks.
>
> Apache was just an example. PHP is the same way: functions get
> removed, renamed, or just subtly changed. I can't replace Dovecot
> with users logged in. I can't upgrade/restart postgresql while
> clients are hitting it. If I'm working remotely, I don't want to
> update openvpn, iptables, or even openssh. There's a long list of
> packages that I just ain't gonna mess with during the day.
 

You have a production machine delivering valuable services to multiple
users.

Therefore you must only update *anything* on it during planned
maintenance slots. If paying customers are involved then preferably
with a second redundant parallel machine to take over the load during
that slot. You don't have much of an option about this in the real
world, think of it as a constraint that you must simply deal with. 

Or think about it another way, if the machine was running RHEL, you
wouldn't just blindly run yum update in the middle of the working day
and expect it to all be just fine.


-- 
Alan McKinnnon
alan.mckinnon@×××××.com