| openSUSE Documentation Part II. Administration / Chapter 3. Online Update | ||||
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 | Part II. Administration | 3.2. Software Updater |  | |
| openSUSE Documentation Part II. Administration / Chapter 3. Online Update | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part II. Administration | 3.2. Software Updater | | |
Contents
openSUSE offers a continuous stream of software security updates for your product. By default openSUSE Updater is used to keep your system up-to-date. Refer to Section “Keeping the System Up-to-date” (Chapter 3, Installing or Removing Software, ↑Start-Up) for further information on openSUSE Updater. This chapter covers alternative graphical tools and command line utilities for updating software packages.
The current patches for openSUSE™ are available from an update software catalog. If you have registered your product during the installation, an update catalog is already configured. If you have not registered openSUSE, you can do so by running + in YaST. Alternatively, you can manually add an update catalog from a source you trust with each update tool. Please refer to the respective application described below for instructions.
openSUSE
provides updates with different relevance levels. Security
updates fix severe security hazards and should definitely be
installed. Recommended updates fix issues that could
compromise your computer, whereas Optional updates fix
non-security relevant issues or provide enhancements.
To install updates and improvements with YaST, run +. All new patches (except the optional ones) that are currently available for your system are already marked for installation. Clicking on automatically installs these patches. After the installation has completed, confirm with . Your system is up-to-date now.
![[Tip]](admon/tip.png) | Tip |
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Starting with SUSE Linux 10.1, the YaST Online Update has been integrated into the YaST Software Management module. This ensures that always the newest version of a package is installed. It is no longer necessary to run an Online Update after having installed new packages. | |
The window consists of five displays. On the left there is the list of all patches available. Find the description of the selected patch displayed below the list of patches. The disk usage is displayed at the bottom of the left column. The right column lists the packages included in the selected patch (a patch can consist of several packages) and, below, a detailed description of the selected package.
The patch display lists all patches available for openSUSE. A list entry
consists of a symbol and the patch name. For a list of possible symbols,
press Shift-F1.
New patches that are not installed yet, are marked with a small arrow in
front of the symbol. Patches that are already installed are marked with the
Keep symbol. Patches on packages that are not installed
are marked with an empty symbol.
The patches are sorted by relevance, security-wise. The color of the patch
name as well as a pop-up window under the mouse cursor indicate the security
status of the patch: Security (red),
Recommended (blue), or Optional (black).
New patches are either marked with the symbol Install
(in case this is the first patch with this name) or
Update (when previous patches with this name already
have been installed). To manually change this, right-click on a
patch and choose an action from the list.
Most patches include updates for several packages. If you want to change actions for single packages, right-click on a package in the package window and choose an action. Once you have marked all patches and packages as desired, proceed with
YaST also offers the possibility to set up an automatic update. Open + for the configuration screen. You can either configure a or a update. Some patches, such as kernel updates, require user interaction, which would cause the automatic update procedure to stop. Therefore you should check , if you want the update procedure to proceed fully automatically. Having done so, you should run a manual from time to time in order to install patches that require interaction.
When checking , the patches are
downloaded at the given time, but not installed. You will have to install
them manually. The patches are downloaded to the rug cache directory,
/var/cache/zmd/web by default. Use the command
rug get-prefs cache-directory to get the current rug
cache directory.
