Installing security updates only with CentOS yum

If you want to install only security-related updates to your CentOS Linux installation using the yum command, it looks like the yum-plugin-securityplugin might be a good option. (I’m having a few problems with it at the moment, so I can’t say that this is the absolute solution.) I found it on this page and this page.

A short version of the commands shown on the second page are this:

# install the security plugin
yum -y install yum-plugin-security

# display all security-related updates
yum --security check-update

# list all bugs fixed
yum updateinfo list bugzillas

# summary of advisories
yum updateinfo summary

# upgrade all packages with security info to latest available package
yum --security update

# upgrade all packages with security info to last security update
# (as opposed to the latest possible update)
yum --security update-minimal

# help
man 8 yum-security

 

See the first link (the Red Hat URL) for more detailed commands.

The beginning of the yum-security man page look like this:

NAME
     yum security plugin

SYNOPSIS
     yum [options] [command] [package ...]

DESCRIPTION
   This plugin extends yum to allow lists and updates to be limited using security relevant criteria

   added yum commands are:

      yum update-minimal

   This  works  like  the  update  command,  but if you have the the package foo-1 installed and 
   have foo-2 and foo-3 available with updateinfo.xml then update-minimal will update you to foo-3.

      yum updateinfo info
      yum updateinfo list
      yum updateinfo summary

   all of the last three take these sub-commands:

      yum updateinfo * all
      yum updateinfo * available
      yum updateinfo * installed
      yum updateinfo * updates

   and then:

      * <advisory> [advisory...]
      * <package>
      * bugzillas
      * cves
      * enhancement
      * security
      * new-packages

 

In summary, if you want to install only security-related updates to your CentOS Linux installation, I hope this article has been a good starting point.