updates on production machines

[Cybe R. Wizard]

On Wed, 8 Dec 2010 09:37:45 -0500
Tom H <tomh0665 at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Wed, Dec 8, 2010 at 6:51 AM, Matt Johnson <johnsonmlw at yahoo.com>
> wrote:
> >
> > I've been following the forums for a little while and there seem to
> > be quite a few 'show-stoppers' that arise when folks update their
> > machines (remaining in the same release). I think I've been blasé
> > about applying updates nightly. Reading the issues raised, I'm
> > (perhaps appropriately) anxious about applying any updates on
> > production machines I've got here. I've probably got the wrong end
> > of the stick.
> >
> > Are these issues pretty rare? How do people protect against issues
> > caused by updating packages?
> >
> > * Full back up / restore (in which case I'd modify my behaviour to
> > only apply updates when I could protect the time required to
> > perform a full restore)
> >
> > * Some sort of dry run or easy way to roll back?
> 
> At the very least, test in a VM before deploying.
> 
That doesn't always mean anything as the VM will likely have different
'hardware' than the real machine.  For instance, I can't test/use the
nvidia software in a VM because the default virtual hardware isn't
nvidia.

Cybe R. Wizard
-- 
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
	Ed Howdershelt (Author)