Multiple Ubuntu System Upgrades & Maintenance

[paulhomebus]

Greets Ben,

Now I have two and soon to be more Ubuntu 10.10 machines in the HomeLan,

I

wanted to ask what is the best way to update them?

Update 1 machine as usual - then copy the contents of
/var/cache/apt/archives/*.deb
over to the other machines.
PRO- 1 batch of downloads needed for files that will be installed over
multiple machines.
CON- If you have widely different architectures / systems then the
updates won't be quite the same per machine.
- Also if you have different software requirements per machine,
ie: 1 machine is specialising editing graphics and 1 is for running a
entertainment center - then some of the updates will need to be run
manually.

* Should I use the onboard Ubuntu Software Centre?

Nope

* Does using Aptitude via CLI offer any real advantages?

Not sure - easiest to use apt-get update & dpkg -i, imo

* Is it worthwhile setting up a single Ubuntu Software Repository on my
HomeLan, then the machines of different type (Desktop/Server/Netbook)

and

machines of different architecture (iMac, PC, Arm) can then update using

their

appropriate packages?

Your talking about alot of software to download if you want it setup
that way.

My suggestion is to share them in a folder on your network - jump onto the
machine that needs updating, copy them to it -- then run # find *.deb
-exec dpkg -i {} \; on them, then run ap-get update -- and synaptic
--upgrade-mode (in terminal) this will list all the outstanding
programs/services that need updating.

Take a look at:
http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2010/10/taking-a-look-at-canonicals-ubuntu-system-management-service-landscape/
http://www.puppetlabs.com/
http://askubuntu.com/search?q=updates+of+multiple+machines

Hope this helps,
paulhomebus <http://paulhomebus.developingcraftsmanship.com/>
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[Roger Irwin]

I thought that Dustin's solution was very clever which is using a proxy
server so that it's only download once from the Internet.

http://blog.dustinkirkland.com/2010/11/yet-another-ubuntu-archive-proxy.html

Rog

Post by paulhomebus
Greets Ben,

Now I have two and soon to be more Ubuntu 10.10 machines in the HomeLan,

I

wanted to ask what is the best way to update them?

Update 1 machine as usual - then copy the contents of
/var/cache/apt/archives/*.deb
over to the other machines.
PRO- 1 batch of downloads needed for files that will be installed over
multiple machines.
CON- If you have widely different architectures / systems then the
updates won't be quite the same per machine.
- Also if you have different software requirements per machine,
ie: 1 machine is specialising editing graphics and 1 is for running a
entertainment center - then some of the updates will need to be run
manually.

* Should I use the onboard Ubuntu Software Centre?

Nope

* Does using Aptitude via CLI offer any real advantages?

Not sure - easiest to use apt-get update& dpkg -i, imo

* Is it worthwhile setting up a single Ubuntu Software Repository on my
HomeLan, then the machines of different type (Desktop/Server/Netbook)

and

machines of different architecture (iMac, PC, Arm) can then update using

their

appropriate packages?

Your talking about alot of software to download if you want it setup
that way.
My suggestion is to share them in a folder on your network - jump onto the
machine that needs updating, copy them to it -- then run # find *.deb
-exec dpkg -i {} \; on them, then run ap-get update -- and synaptic
--upgrade-mode (in terminal) this will list all the outstanding
programs/services that need updating.
http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2010/10/taking-a-look-at-canonicals-ubuntu-system-management-service-landscape/
http://www.puppetlabs.com/
http://askubuntu.com/search?q=updates+of+multiple+machines
Hope this helps,
paulhomebus<http://paulhomebus.developingcraftsmanship.com/>
_______________________________________________
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[Steve Holdoway]

I'm pretty lazy and just use a transparent proxy for http: traffic on my
gateway machine.

Steve

Post by paulhomebus
Greets Ben,

Now I have two and soon to be more Ubuntu 10.10 machines in the HomeLan,

I

wanted to ask what is the best way to update them?

Update 1 machine as usual - then copy the contents of
/var/cache/apt/archives/*.deb
over to the other machines.
PRO- 1 batch of downloads needed for files that will be installed over
multiple machines.
CON- If you have widely different architectures / systems then the
updates won't be quite the same per machine.
- Also if you have different software requirements per machine,
ie: 1 machine is specialising editing graphics and 1 is for running a
entertainment center - then some of the updates will need to be run
manually.

* Should I use the onboard Ubuntu Software Centre?

Nope

* Does using Aptitude via CLI offer any real advantages?

Not sure - easiest to use apt-get update & dpkg -i, imo

* Is it worthwhile setting up a single Ubuntu Software Repository on my
HomeLan, then the machines of different type (Desktop/Server/Netbook)

and

machines of different architecture (iMac, PC, Arm) can then update using

their

appropriate packages?

Your talking about alot of software to download if you want it setup
that way.
My suggestion is to share them in a folder on your network - jump onto the
machine that needs updating, copy them to it -- then run # find *.deb
-exec dpkg -i {} \; on them, then run ap-get update -- and synaptic
--upgrade-mode (in terminal) this will list all the outstanding
programs/services that need updating.
http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2010/10/taking-a-look-at-canonicals-ubuntu-system-management-service-landscape/
http://www.puppetlabs.com/
http://askubuntu.com/search?q=updates+of+multiple+machines
Hope this helps,
paulhomebus <http://paulhomebus.developingcraftsmanship.com/>
_______________________________________________
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[Nevyn]

Post by paulhomebus
Greets Ben,

Now I have two and soon to be more Ubuntu 10.10 machines in the HomeLan,

I

wanted to ask what is the best way to update them?

    Update 1 machine as usual - then copy the contents of
/var/cache/apt/archives/*.deb
    over to the other machines.
    PRO- 1 batch of downloads needed for files that will be installed over
multiple machines.
    CON- If you have widely different architectures / systems then the
updates won't be quite the same per machine.
           - Also if you have different software requirements per machine,
ie: 1 machine is specialising editing graphics and 1 is for running a
entertainment center - then some of the updates will need to be run
manually.

* Should I use the onboard Ubuntu Software Centre?

     Nope

* Does using Aptitude via CLI offer any real advantages?

    Not sure - easiest to use apt-get update & dpkg -i,   imo

* Is  it worthwhile setting up a single Ubuntu Software Repository on my
HomeLan, then the machines of different type (Desktop/Server/Netbook)

 and

machines of different architecture (iMac, PC, Arm) can then update using

their

appropriate packages?

    Your talking about alot of software to download if you want it setup
that way.
My suggestion is to share them in a folder on your network - jump onto the
machine that needs updating, copy them to it -- then run   # find *.deb
-exec dpkg -i {} \;       on them, then run ap-get update -- and synaptic
--upgrade-mode  (in terminal) this will list all the outstanding
programs/services that need updating.
http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2010/10/taking-a-look-at-canonicals-ubuntu-system-management-service-landscape/
http://www.puppetlabs.com/
http://askubuntu.com/search?q=updates+of+multiple+machines
Hope this helps,
paulhomebus <http://paulhomebus.developingcraftsmanship.com/>

Wow! That's amazingly ugly. The problem with this approach:
* You have to have a machine to do the upgrade in the first place on
one machine.
* It lacks any sort of handling of anything different - architecture
for example.
* It's a hell of a lot of effort of something that can be done fairly easily.

The standard response to this question:
* Use one of the tools made specifically for this purpose such as apt-cacher-ng.
* Use a proxy.

Personally I would go for the first answer - apt-cacher-ng. The reason
being is that you're looking at different architectures. You don't
really want to keep seperately repositories. Rather you'd just want to
point your clients there and let the repository do the work for you.
This solution is also tolerant of different versions of the
distribution so you could have lucid on your servers and you could try
maverick on another machine without having to accomodate for the
differences and package name conflicts.

Regards,
Nevyn
http://nevsramblings.blogspot.com/

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