After installing RedHat, then import their PGP key like so:

rpm --import /usr/share/doc/rpm-[0-9]*/RPM-GPG-KEY

You can do that before or after you install autorpm. If you are at KU, I have repackaged autorpm to use the KU mirror of RedHat updates. You can find it in here:

http://lark.cc.ku.edu/~pauljohn/software

It should have a name like autorpm-xx.xx.-ku.i386.rpm

If autorpm works right, it should run every night and then download and install new packages. EXCEPT FOR THE kernel packages, which you should install manually. When autorpm runs, it sends an email to your root user describing its activity. To check the mail, I use the pine program that comes with RedHat Linux.

If you want to run autorpm "manually", type this:

/usr/sbin/autorpm

When you run that, you can type unix-style commands like "ls" to see the packages and "install package_name".

When you install autorpm, it works more nicely if you install some addon package for readline/perl. I've done it both ways, don't notice much difference.

To review the configuration files for autoRPM, check this directory:

/etc/autorpm.d

One user reported to me that autorpm was downloading the rpm packages--he could see them when he ran

/usr/sbin/autorpm

But he had to manually install the packages. My opinion is that this was due to the failure to install the RedHat? RPM key described earlier. But I've not heard feedback if autoRPM does install automatically for him.

This is an alternative to the approach that KU security describes here:

http://www.security.ku.edu/tools/update/redhat.shtml

That idea is to fix up the RedHat up2date program to do basically the same thing as my autorpm thing does. I've installed both, think both are fine, but prefer autoRPM. I find the up2date thing to be too much of a GUI hassle and also it has the scent of a commerical program, since it is obviously designed to get users to pay for access to the RH servers. The KU web page describes a way to circumvent the commercial harrassment and use the KU mirror.

-- PaulJohnson - 20 Oct 2003