CentOS – How to Update Security Patches

centosyum

I need some help as I am really struggling to understand a problem.

I want to list the security packages that need to be updated by yum only on CentOS 6.

I have downloaded an old version of CentOS 6

[root@server ~]# cat /etc/redhat-release
CentOS Linux release 6.0 (Final)
[root@server ~]# uname -a
Linux server 2.6.32-71.el6.x86_64 #1 SMP Fri May 20 03:51:51 BST 2011 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

Then I installed

[root@server ~]# yum install yum-plugin-security

Now I expect to be able to run 

[root@server ~]# yum updateinfo summary
Loaded plugins: fastestmirror, presto, security
Loading mirror speeds from cached hostfile
 * base: centos.schlundtech.de
 * extras: centosmirror.netcup.net
 * updates: centos.mirror.net-d-sign.de
updateinfo summary done

or 

[root@server ~]# yum --security check-update
Loaded plugins: fastestmirror, presto, security
Loading mirror speeds from cached hostfile
 * base: centos.schlundtech.de
 * extras: centosmirror.netcup.net
 * updates: centos.mirror.net-d-sign.de
Limiting package lists to security relevant ones
No packages needed for security; 174 packages available

and receive a list of packages that have security issue that need to be updated. as you can see it doesn't show anything.

Am I going mad? Yum update lists 173 updated packages, but none of them are security related?

Best Answer

Contrary to RHEL, CentOS doesn't tag security on packages: so except for EPEL, you don't get security-only updates, as is explaining this answer on CentOS forums: how to install security patches in Centos

Re: how to install security patches in Centos

Post by TrevorH ยป 2016/09/19 09:32:02

Just run yum update on a regular basis and you will automatically get security updates.

If you are referring to the ability to run e.g. yum --security update then you are out of luck as CentOS does not supply the necessary data in the yum repositories to allow the yum -plugin-security plugin to work at all. It does not work.

Note that TrevorH is part of the CentOS team and working on the Fora (ie: forums)

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