Semi-automatic Upgrade script for servers

MooktaKiNG · Guru Joined: 11 Nov 2002 Posts: 326 Location: London, UK

I was just wondering and a tiny little idea just popped into my head.

I like to have my server auto upgrade the programs files. But i can't do that, becuase of gentoo's config files being replaced etc etc

So i was wondering and i think i found a suitable solution for servers.

My server is a personal server. only about 5 people altogether use it. In my own country. therefore it just doesn't get used during the night. So thats when i usually setup automatic tasks, such as emerge sync and virus update and scans etc etc

I also hate the fact that i neglect my server, and not bother upgrading it. So over a while it gets old and then when i am forced to upgrade the list of upgrade files are endless and it would be like reinstall again.

But my solution, which i believe a lot of people will like, integrates into portage very nicely.

Since recently they added the buildpkgonly feature to portage, why not make full use of it.

So i created a simple script as my solution:

Hackeron · Guru Joined: 01 Nov 2002 Posts: 307

This is not a good method and can seriously break things..

You need to run etc-update afterwards and in some cases revdep-rebuild or follow instructions printed on script, I'm just thinking of a better way to update.

Would be nice if I could find an archive of all config versions, that way I find a config file identical to the signature of current config file, and if it was unchanged by the user, then there's no harm in auto updating it after making a backup, otherwise leave the update pending for etc-update.

Also, since instructions can be taken from backup, I'm just working on a little script to grep only the useful stuf (not the applying patch, etc stuff), and generate an html page with details about all updates + instructions. Probably going to base on the already make portage-info bash script.

MooktaKiNG · Guru Joined: 11 Nov 2002 Posts: 326 Location: London, UK

You don't understand what this script is for.

I'm sorry, i'm not very good at explaining things.

This script does NOT install the programs.

It ONLY compiles it itno binary and then emails you about it.

If you want to install you would use --usepgkonly option in emerge to install the packages. This installtion would be quicker becuase the package is already in a compiled form and therefore saving the user a lot of time. Also the server does not get clogged up compiling some program, when its needed for other things.

Late at night, the server does nothing. Its the perfect time to make it do something, and compiling packages is a good deal.
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Hackeron · Guru Joined: 01 Nov 2002 Posts: 307

ah, I see now. Nice idea

I was mislead by the thread title: Nice auto-upgrade tip for server and such

so it doesn't upgrade, just builds.

MooktaKiNG · Guru Joined: 11 Nov 2002 Posts: 326 Location: London, UK

Yeh, i mind stops working when i drink lots of coffee.

Also i thought lets quickly type it up before i forget

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malloc · l33t Joined: 19 Sep 2003 Posts: 762

MooktaKiNG · Guru Joined: 11 Nov 2002 Posts: 326 Location: London, UK

Please try and read carefully

I said cron is a magical program that outputs everything that happened into an email and sends that to the root user.

So you would see all the output from "emerge sync", which i don't like to see, but i thought i'd include it. And you'll also see the output from emerge -uUDp world
The last command has >/dev/null 2>&1 to the end, which will make cron ignore the output, which is a pile load of compiling

and you don't want to save all that to a file. too big.

trust me, this works fine. Just try it out. It won't b0rk your PC or anything. you can comment out the last command even.

I don't think people like simple solutions

it scares people. :wink:

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Athlon XP 2001, Giga-Byte GA-7VRXP MB, 640Mb DDR RAM 333MHz, MSI Geforce 4800SE 128Mb DDR, 40x12x48 Liteon CDRW drive, Flower Cooler, ADSL Router

malloc · l33t Joined: 19 Sep 2003 Posts: 762

I believe in you although my experience with cron says that it will only tell us something when whatever it was running went terribly wrong.

Just as a side note, how long have you been running this script?
It's just that i had a huge problem with putting emerge sync in cron. emerge was called in a linear inc way. 1,2,4,8...emerge processes were called simultaneously. I found that out when i had about 32 of them running at the same time and it totally brought my server to a complete halt :cry:

If you have it running and it hasn't given you problems i'm more than glad to try it out

MooktaKiNG · Guru Joined: 11 Nov 2002 Posts: 326 Location: London, UK

Well i run many cron commands. I run emerge sync, since i installed my server, which would make it couple of months. Not every day though. Just every 3 days.

However, the script above would be more appropriate if people run it once a week, maybe during the weekend or something.

I can't say i have done any exntensive bug hunting. The code is simple enough and it should work. I'm running it right now. I even used it for few hours now, running every hour

(turning emerge sync off). It seems to be working. It does email the root user.

However, i don't believe anything major will happen. I believe the worst that can happen is that cron didn't send an email, or the commands failed. In those cases, your gentoo won't get b0rked.

As always, i won't take responsibility of what the script will do. I can only tell you that it has worked for me.
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http://www.mooktakim.com
Athlon XP 2001, Giga-Byte GA-7VRXP MB, 640Mb DDR RAM 333MHz, MSI Geforce 4800SE 128Mb DDR, 40x12x48 Liteon CDRW drive, Flower Cooler, ADSL Router

webkiller71 · n00b Joined: 29 Nov 2003 Posts: 20

the only problem is, is that you won't get any notice if there was an error during the compile proces, and you should check if your harddisk doesn't get filled by all the packages
not that they will b0rk your system, but think of it

MooktaKiNG · Guru Joined: 11 Nov 2002 Posts: 326 Location: London, UK

Yeh i know. But you do get emailed. so therefore you know something was compiled, or compiled with error etc, then you checked the logs to see what happened. Then you can sort out all the binaries out your self.

I guess its very basic. I might try and improve it in the future

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http://www.mooktakim.com
Athlon XP 2001, Giga-Byte GA-7VRXP MB, 640Mb DDR RAM 333MHz, MSI Geforce 4800SE 128Mb DDR, 40x12x48 Liteon CDRW drive, Flower Cooler, ADSL Router

cschwede · Posted: Wed Mar 03, 2004 6:59 pm Post subject:

MooktaKiNG · Guru Joined: 11 Nov 2002 Posts: 326 Location: London, UK

Nice

I like that script.

I like it a lot

well, i did ask if anyone has better idea

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Athlon XP 2001, Giga-Byte GA-7VRXP MB, 640Mb DDR RAM 333MHz, MSI Geforce 4800SE 128Mb DDR, 40x12x48 Liteon CDRW drive, Flower Cooler, ADSL Router

bit · n00b Joined: 23 Nov 2003 Posts: 34 Location: Dallas, TX

I was tryng to make my machine email me with what updates are available, I used this vcron line.

0 10 * * 2,5 emerge sync > /dev/null ; emerge -p world | sendmail bit

Odd because if I run that noramlly it works but when run by vcron it dosen't seem to do anything.