RPM's

[Chris Brenton]

Robert Casey wrote:
 >
>  One of the dependencies,
> modutils, requires another dependency called libc.so.6(GLIBC_2.3) but I 
> can't find such a thing.

Actually, you know what you need, glibc:

[cbrenton at mailgate cbrenton]$ rpm -ql glibc | grep 'libc\.so\.6'
/lib/libc.so.6

so update your glibc and you should be cool, provided you don't run into 
other dependency issues (glibc has a ton of dependencies). You can grab 
it here:

http://www.rpmfind.net/linux/rpm2html/search.php?query=glibc&submit=Search+...&system=redhat-7.2&arch=i386

note that the latest release supported by your OS is 2.2.4, not 2.3 so 
you may have to do additional upgrading. IMHO it might even be easier to 
just do a full OS upgrade and patch from there. I find 7.3 to be very 
stable. RH 8 is cool, but I'm not digging the new X stuff. I have yet to 
play with RH 9 (not enough bandwidth) but I've heard complains with the 
stock Perl install.

> I've heard the easiest way to do this is with up2date

I think some of this is personal preference. Personally, I go with 
rpm-update as I find it easy to set it up as a centralized patch server. 
Its also easy to run cron updates off the clients via FTP, scp, NFS, or 
what ever is your poison. My environment is setup to auto-patch all 
systems at 2:00 AM each night. More than once I've been clued in to a 
recent exploit due to a system patch notification rather than a Bugtraq 
notice. ;-)

Note your mileage may vary. Not everyone feels comfortable auto-patching 
without manual guidance. In that case rpm-update can at least get the 
correct patches onto the system for when you are ready to do it by hand.

 > but I need the practice doing upgrades manually so I can upgrade
> the systems I have in a classified network. So far this has been painful 
> to say the least. Am I doing something wrong or is it usually this bad.

Some of it is a slippage thing. If you stay on top of patches and 
upgrades, life is usually cool. If you go long periods between patches 
(how long ago was 7.2 released???) it can certainly be painful as you 
are experiencing.

HTH,
C