Potage and System stability

[aminm]

Hi Gentooers,
I'd like to use gentoo on a productions server environment, but at first need to have some insight into the capabilities of the portage system. Firstly, what is the effect of periodic package updates on system stablity? If I update Apache and Mysql servers running mission-critical applications (both security and feature updates), does this mean a forced server shutdown before the updates can take effect? Secondly, Is there a mechanism in place to prevent or alert possible configuration inconsistencies that may arise during a major version update?
I want to make sure that portage updates are safe and can never ever affect the system's reliability.

[30726]

You don't have to reboot when you upgrade apache if that's what you mean, but you'll have to restart the apache service. The Gentoo init scripts can easily do this and also does service dependency checking.

As for configuration inconsistencies, Gentoo doesn't overwrite anything in protected dirs like /etc without asking you first. If you run etc-update, it will list the files that will be replaced. You can simply remove the ._cfg* file if you don't want the changes to be applied.