Red Hat Knowledgebase

All updates and errata for Red Hat Enterprise Linux are available via Red Hat Network (RHN) and can be downloaded and installed with up2date. up2date is a utility provided with Red Hat Enterprise Linux that downloads packages form RHN and installs them on your system. The beauty of up2date is that it can update and install new packages as well as automatically solve dependencies and download additional packages that you may need.

To use up2date to install updates, you must first register your system with RHN. To use up2date to update or install a single package or small subset of packages type the following commands in either a terminal window or console.

First you must register your system with RHN:

# up2date --register

To update or install one package:

# up2date <packageName> # up2date httpd

To update or install a small sub set of packages:

# up2date <packageName1> <packageName2> <packageName3> # up2date tomcat5 tomcat5-webapps tomcat5-admin-webapps

By default all kernel packages are on the "Skip List" and will not be installed. To force up2date to install any kernel packages you need to include the -f option:

# up2date -f <kernelPackageName> # up2date -f kernel

More information can be found in the up2date man pages by typing the command:

# man up2date