Many people seem to be afraid of mixing stable with testing, but frankly, testing is fairly stable in its own right, and with proper preferences and solution checking, you can avoid the "stability drift" that puts your core packages on the unstable path.
"Testing is fairly stable??", you ask. Yes. In order for a package to migrate from unstable to testing, it has to have zero open bugs for 10 consecutive days. Chances are that, especially for the more popular packages, somebody is going to submit a bug report for an unstable version if something is wrong.
Even if you don't want to mix the environments, it's still nice to have the option there in case you run into something that requires a newer version than what is in stable.
Here's what I recommend for setting this up:
First, create the following files in /etc/apt/preferences.d
:
stable.pref
:
# 500 <= P < 990: causes a version to be installed unless there is a
# version available belonging to the target release or the installed
# version is more recent
Package: *
Pin: release a=stable
Pin-Priority: 900
testing.pref
:
# 100 <= P < 500: causes a version to be installed unless there is a
# version available belonging to some other distribution or the installed
# version is more recent
Package: *
Pin: release a=testing
Pin-Priority: 400
unstable.pref
:
# 0 < P < 100: causes a version to be installed only if there is no
# installed version of the package
Package: *
Pin: release a=unstable
Pin-Priority: 50
experimental.pref
:
# 0 < P < 100: causes a version to be installed only if there is no
# installed version of the package
Package: *
Pin: release a=experimental
Pin-Priority: 1
(Don't be afraid of the unstable/experimental stuff here. The priorities are low enough that it's never going to automatically install any of that stuff. Even the testing branch will behave, as it's only going to install the packages you want to be in testing.)
Now, creating a matching set for /etc/apt/sources.list.d
:
stable.list
: Copy from your original /etc/apt/sources.list
. Rename the old file to something like sources.list.orig
.
testing.list
: Same as stable.list
, except with testing
.
unstable.list
: Same as stable.list
, except with unstable
, and remove the security lists.
experimental.list
: Same as unstable.list
, except with experimental
.
You can also add a oldstable
in sources.lists.d
and preferences.d
(use a priority of 1), though this moniker will tend to expire and disappear before the next stable cycle. In cases like that, you can use http://archive.debian.org/debian/
and "hardcode" the Debian version (etch, lenny, etc.).
To install the testing version of a package, simply use aptitude install lib-foobar-package/testing
, or just jump into aptitude's GUI and select the version inside of the package details (hit enter on the package you're looking at).
If you get complaints of package conflicts, look at the solutions first. In most cases, the first one is going to be "don't install this version". Learn to use the per-package accept/reject resolver choices. For example, if you're installing foobar-package/testing, and the first solution is "don't install foobar-package/testing", then mark that choice as rejected, and the other solutions will never veer to that path again. In cases like these, you'll probably have to install a few other testing packages.
If it's getting too hairy (like it's trying to upgrade libc or the kernel or some other huge core system), then you can either reject those upgrade paths or just back out of the initial upgrade altogether. Remember that it's only going to upgrade stuff to testing/unstable if you allow it to.
EDIT: Fixed some priority pins, and updated the list.
If I understand, what you need,then simplest thing might be just to specify multiple saving locations in /etc/syslog.conf, example from syslog manpage.
#Kernel messages are first, stored in the kernel
file, critical messages and higher ones also go
to another host and to the console
kern.* /var/adm/kernel
kern.crit @finlandia
kern.crit /dev/console
kern.info;kern.!err /var/adm/kernel-info
As you can see, every kernel message is stored in /var/adm/kernel,and every critical kernel message will be sent to logserver on machine 'finlandia' and displayed on console as well. You will have to edit logrotate in /etc/logrotate.d/syslog, so logs will be rotated properly on your backup partition.
I believe this is better solution than backup with cron,because backup-logs are created everytime something is logged :-)
Anyway, if you will be interested in creating a backup log-server on remote machine, I recommend NSA RHEL Security Guide. Page 66. It helped us quite a lot when I was setting up a Rhel server with my classmates :-)
Best Answer
have rpm tell you what package provides that file
Name : pirut Relocations: (not relocatable) Version : 1.3.28 Vendor: Red Hat, Inc. Release : 13.el5 Build Date: Wed 19 Mar 2008 03:08:18 PM MDT Install Date: Mon 07 Dec 2009 02:39:48 PM MST Build Host: js20-bc1-9.build.redhat.com Group : Applications/System Source RPM: pirut-1.3.28-13.el5.src.rpm Size : 1477554 License: GPL Signature : DSA/SHA1, Fri 25 Apr 2008 11:53:09 AM MDT, Key ID 5326810137017186
Summary : Package Installation, Removal and Update Tools Description : pirut (pronounced "pirate") provides a set of graphical tools for managing software.