explanation of yum.cron + a little frustration.

[Jeff Vian]

On Sun, 2005-08-14 at 15:19 -0500, akonstam at trinity.edu wrote:
> On Sun, Aug 14, 2005 at 02:11:36PM -0500, Jason L Tibbitts III wrote:
> > >>>>> "a" == akonstam  <akonstam at trinity.edu> writes:
> > 
> > a> You are correct and I started yum, but the bigger question still
> > a> remains what does yum.cron do.
> > 
> > Once per day cron will run every script in /etc/cron.daily, which
> > includes yum.cron.  That script first checks to see if yum was enabled
> > by /etc/init.d/yum; to do this it checks for the existence of
> > /var/lock/sybsys/yum.  If that file is not present the script just
> > exits without doing anything.  Otherwise it invokes yum.
> > 
> > This arrangement allows you to use the standard initscripts system
> > (chkconfig, service, and various graphical tools) to control whether
> > or not yum runs nightly.  Otherwise you'd have to manage things
> > manually.  Of course, you still can do things manually if you really
> > want to.
> > 
> >  - J<
> Look, I appretiate that people answer my questions but why won't some
> on tell me the answer to this question. I asume the last line in the
> script does a yum update. But why is such a complex line needed.
> Where does shell come from and what do the commands in:
> do exactly.
> 
Possibly because some of us expect those seeking answers to actually
research the question and then ask for clarification instead of
cluttering the list with noise without having done even the simplest of
research.

The line you are asking about is
        /usr/bin/yum -R 120 -e 0 -d 0 -y update yum
        /usr/bin/yum -R 10 -e 0 -d 0 -y shell /etc/yum/yum-daily.yum

"man yum" tells all about the options on the lines above.

I ran that command from the command line and determined that shell on
the second line tells yum to set up a "Yum Shell" then run the commands
within the named file in the yum shell.  Watching the messages as it
executes is very informative.

> The file /etc/init.d is a joke. All that to create a lock file for a
> program it does not run, That is at least a minor violation of the
> concept behind the scripts in /etc/init.d

If you have a better way to enable/disable automatic running of a cron
job that is both simpler and fits your idea of what should be, then
please let us all hear from the expert.

> -- 
> 
> =======================================================================
> Somehow, the world always affects you more than you affect it.
> -------------------------------------------
> Aaron Konstam
> Computer Science
> Trinity University
> telephone: (210)-999-7484
>