Keeping your Linux/Unix server updated is a very crucial task as a system administrator. Not only it mitigates many vulnerabilities, but also help in smooth running of the Linux server. In this basic Linux tutorial, we will see how to update your Linux server using ‘yum’ command. This will also include updating your Linux kernel and firmware.
How To Update Linux Server Using YUM
To update your Linux machine, please make sure you have the proper yum repository configured on your system. You can configure repository in multiple ways which include, local yum repository through CD ROM, default Red Hat or CentOS repository (for this you require internet access), or completely downloading packages and creating repository out of it.
For this tutorial, I have used default yum repository of CentOS as my virtual Linux machine is connected to the internet.
First of all, check if your repository is working fine or not using the below command.
yum repolist
Once you are sure yum repository is working fine, you can run the ‘yum update’ command. But, before that, I will urge you to do some pre-reboot sanity check and keep the output of important files and commands, like ‘uname -a’, /etc/fstab, ‘df -h’, ‘fdisk -l’, etc. This will help you to verify your system after taking reboot.
yum update or yum update -y
Basically, ‘yum update‘ is done in 4 steps, which are listed below.
- Downloading the packages.
- Installing and upgrading the packages.
- Cleanup.
- Verification.
- Downloading the packages.
- Installing and upgrading the packages.
- Cleanup.
- Verification.
Now, let’s see the video, how to update your RHEL/CentOS Linux machine using yum.
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