OT Fedora in production (as nstallation Problem on Fedora Core 8)

[Anthony Cartmell]

>> >Quite simple, I upgrade roughly every 12 to 18 months :)
>>
>> I rest my case

Your case is that some people don't want to update their OS every 12 to 18  
months. I quite agree with that.

For those of us that do, Fedora is perfectly stable (as in bug-free)  
enough for production, whatever the folks from CentOS say ;)

> I think it shows the broad spectrum of contributors here, from Unix
> newbies, to old guys like me (I'm 48).

Hmmm... perhaps I am a Unix newbie. I'm still less than 40 (39.75) and  
have only been involved with Unix/Linux admin (HP/SGI/Sun/AIX/RedHat) for  
21 years :)

> I'm obviously from the old school,
> but a piece of hardware, install your OS and run until it you get a
> new piece of hardware. This was the way it was when I started out with
> SCO and AIX, and it's the way it still is.

Yes, and it's still the way to go for some server situations. I think the  
web requires more frequent updates, especially for the sort of work I do.  
I have many small customers wanting up-to-date features, and no  
proprietory software that requires a long-term-fixed OS.

> I've never done a in place linux upgrade, and I never will. Fresh
> install or nothing.

Yum upgrades over the web are great fun! You will need a remote serial  
console to sort out networking problems though.

> My servers cannot be taken down to upgrade. I'm not sure how you Fedora  
> users do it.

Having a single server is not suitable for production use. Since you  
should have a backup server it's simple to upgrade and test, then switch  
and upgrade the other one. A Fedora upgrade using yum goes
1) Update fedora version package, so yum reads from the later repository  
directories.
2) Yum update (perhaps a little fiddling to sort package dependencies,  
just uninstall problem ones, then reinstall after the update).
3) Have a coffee and wait for it to finish (usually a few hours).
4) Test all systems are working OK :)
5) Switch over and repeat on other servers.

I'm glad to hear that I'm not the only one who is happy with Fedora. I'll  
be upgrading to FC8 from FC6 in the New Year.

Cheers!

Anthony
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