tedwardia / aco-yum_autoupdate

Puppet module for scheduled system updates on RHEL variants

#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   => '[e-mail]',
  email_from => '[e-mail]'
}

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

#####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

##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

• Kim Stig Andersen
• Joshua Hoblitt
• Daniel Forsberg

Features request and contributions are always welcome!