Red Hat Knowledgebase

It is now possible to limit yum to install security updates only using Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5. To do so, simply install the yum-security plugin:

# yum install
yum-security

Alternatively, download the yum-security package from the Red Hat Network (RHN) and manually install it on the system.

After installing the yum-security plugin, run the following command:

# yum update --security

This will download and install the available security updates from RHN.

To list all available security updates but not install them:

 yum list-security

To list all available security updates with verbose descriptions of the issues they apply to:

# yum info-sec