yum_autoupdate

Table of Contents

1. Overview - What is the yum_autoupdate module?
2. Module Description - What does the module do?
3. Setup - The basics of getting started with yum_autoupdate

• A couple of examples

4. Usage - The classes and defined types available for configuration

• Classes and Defined Types
  • Class: yum_autoupdate
  • Define: yum_autoupdate::schedule
  • Common parameters

5. To Do - List of features to be implemented
6. Testing - How to run the included spec tests
7. Contributors

Overview

The yum_autoupdate module allows you to configure automatic updates on all RHEL variants including Fedora.

Module description

The yum-cron service enables scheduled system updates on RHEL-based systems. This module allows you to install and configure this service without the need to fiddle manually with configuration files, which may vary from one major version to the other on most RHEL-based distributions.

Setup

yum_autoupdate will affect the following parts of your system:

• yum-cron package and service
• yum cron configuration file(s)
• yum-cron script on older distributions

Including the main class is enough to get started. It will enable automatic updates check via a cron.daily task and apply all available updates whenever possible. Summary emails are sent to the local root user.

include ::yum_autoupdate

A couple of examples

Disable emails and just download updates, do not apply

class { '::yum_autoupdate':
  notify_email => false,
  action       => 'download'
}

Suppress debug output completely, but keep logging possible errors

class { '::yum_autoupdate':
  …
  debug_level => -1,
  error_level => 3
}

Send emails to a different receiver (local root account by default) and from a specific sender address

class { '::yum_autoupdate':
  …
  email_to   => '[email protected]',
  email_from => '[email protected]'
}

Let crond send emails instead of mailx

class { '::yum_autoupdate':
  …
  email_to => ''
}

Disable random delay

class { '::yum_autoupdate':
  …
  randomwait => 0
}

Exclude specific packages

class { '::yum_autoupdate':
  …
  exclude => ['httpd','puppet*']
}

Replace all default schedules by custom ones

class { '::yum_autoupdate':
  default_schedule => false
}
yum_autoupdate::schedule { 'weekly update':
  action  => 'apply',
  special => 'weekly',
  …
}
yum_autoupdate::schedule { 'daily download':
  action  => 'download',
  hour    => '23',
  minute  => '30',
  weekday => '*'
  …
}

Usage

Class: yum_autoupdate

Primary class and entry point of the module.

Parameters within yum_autoupdate:

service_ensure

Whether the service should be running. Valid values are stopped and running. Defaults to running

service_enable

Whether to enable the yum-cron service. Boolean value. Defaults to true

default_schedule

Wheteher to enable the default daily schedule. If yes, configure it using the class parameters. Boolean value. Defaults to true

keep_default_hourly

Wheteher to keep the default hourly check. Boolean value. Defaults to false

See also Common parameters

Define: yum_autoupdate::schedule

Create a yum-cron schedule

Parameters within yum_autoupdate::schedule:

user, hour, minute, month, monthday, weekday, special

Please read Puppet cron type

See also Common parameters

Common parameters

Parameters common to both yum_autoupdate and yum_autoupdate::schedule

action

Mode in which yum-cron should perform. Valid values are check, download and apply. Defaults to apply

exclude

Array of packages to exclude from automatic update. Defaults to []

notify_email

Enable email notifications. Boolean value. Defaults to true
It is recommended to also adjust debug/error levels accordingly (see below)

email_to

Recipient email address for update notifications. Defaults to root (local user)
An empty string forces the output to stdio, so emails will be sent by crond

email_from

Sender email address for update notifications. No effect when email_to is empty. Defaults to root (local user)
Note: not supported on CentOS 5

debug_level

YUM debug level. Valid values are numbers between -1 and 10. -1 to disable. Default depends on the platform
Enforced to -1 when notify_email is false
Notes:

• -1 is necessary to also suppress messages from deltarpm, since 0 doesn't
• Always outputs to stdio on modern platforms, can apparently not be changed

error_level

YUM error level. Valid values are numbers between 0 and 10. 0 to disable. Defaults to 0
Note: always outputs to stdio on modern platforms, can apparently not be changed

skip_broken

Enable YUM --skip-broken option. Boolean value. Defaults to false

update_cmd

What updates to install, based on RedHat erratas. Valid values are:

• default (all available updates)
• security (only packages with a security errata)
• security-severity:Critical (only packages with a Critical security errata)
• minimal (only upgrade to latest bugfix or security errata, ignore enhancements)
• minimal-security (only upgrade to latest security errata, ignore bugfixes and enhancements)
• minimal-security-severity:Critical (only upgrade to latest Critical security errata, ignore bugfixes and enhancements)

Defaults to default

Note: only supported on RHEL 7 and Fedora

randomwait

Maximum amount of time in minutes YUM randomly waits before running. Valid values are numbers between 0 and 1440. 0 to disable. Defaults to 60

systemname

Hostname to use for identification. Defaults to undef which should be automatically converted to the system hostname.

To Do

• Add support for passing arbitrary parameters to YUM

Testing

The only prerequisite is to have the Bundler gem installed:

$ gem install bundler

Install gem dependencies using Bundler (related documentation page here):

$ bundle install

When your environment is set up, run the spec tests inside the module directory using:

$ bundle exec rake spec

Check the puppetlabs_spec_helper GitHub repository for more information.

Contributors

• Pat Riehecky
• Kim Stig Andersen
• Joshua Hoblitt
• Daniel Forsberg
• Mattieu Puel

Features request and contributions are always welcome!