< Features
YumCron
Summary
Yum Cron is a program that is designed to be run as a cron job to automatically preform common yum tasks. These tasks include refreshing the repository metadata, and checking for, downloading, and installing package updates.
Owner
- Name: Nick Jacek
- Email: <njacek@redhat.com>
Current status
- Targeted release: Fedora 18
- Last updated: 2012-06-26
- Percentage of completion: 10%
Detailed Description
The goal of this feature is to provide a single convenient way for users to automate common yum tasks. YumCron will provide the means to:
- Refresh repository metadata. Then, when users run yum, they will not have to wait for metadata to be downloaded, providing a more responsive experience.
- Check for updates, and alert users that updates are available for their system.
- Download available updates. Users who wish to apply updates manually will then be able to do so more quickly and conveniently, as they will not have to wait for the updates to be downloaded.
- Install updates automatically.
Benefit to Fedora
Previously, yum-updatesd and yum-cron were available to automate certain yum tasks. However, these did not provide all the capabilities that users required, and were difficult to use and maintain. In particular, yum-cron simply provided a wrapper to the yum command line interface, making it difficult to access different capabilities and options. This feature will unify and extend yum-updatesd and yum-cron to provide a single, clear, consistent way to automate yum tasks. This will benefit Fedora users and administrators by making it much more simple and convenient to keep their systems up to date.
Scope
This is a relatively isolated change. It should have minimal impact on the rest of the distribution, as it will not perform any functions that could not be done manually with yum.
- Implement functionality to check, download and install updates
- Implement methods to emit messages to users about available updates and the operation of the program
- Submit package for inclusion in Fedora
- Perform testing and bug fixes
How To Test
- Configure yum-cron.conf to preform the desired actions
- Run yum-cron manually, or set it to be run as a cron job.
- Check that the requested actions are performed to check for, download, or install updates.
User Experience
Users will be able to configure YumCron to perform various functions. Then, the feature will be run as a cron job to perform the requested actions. Users will be notified about the operation of this program according to the method that they select in the configuration file.
Dependencies
No other packages depend on this package.
Contingency Plan
No contingency plan is needed, we can revert to the previous release behavior of yum and yum-updatesd.
Documentation
- Documentation will be added
Release Notes
- YumCron provides a simple way to automate common yum tasks.