This page has instructions for keeping your Linux computer up-to-date with security updates and patches. The mechanisms differ for each distribution.
Fedora comes with a utility called 'yum'. Red Hat provides a frontend to this called up2date (this used to be the Red Hat network front end). However, if you have a Fedora Core 1 install, up2date is broken as Red Hat signed packages with a key that has now expired. Run
yum update
to download all the package headers (slow the first time) and all the updates packages (also slow the first time.)
...urpmi? A Mandrake user needs to fill me in...
http://security.debian.org stable/updates main contrib non-freeThen, every one in a while do an
apt-get update apt-get upgrade
This will pull the latest security updates from Debian's server. Security packages are stable packages with only the fixes for security vulnerabilities applied. It's normally safe to install updates on a schedule with a script if you're using only security.debian.org - packages in security are very reliable.
If you want to be kept informed about Debian security updates, check out http://lists.debian.org/debian-security-announce/.
If you're running Testing, you're out of luck. Wait 10 days for the security-fixed-in-unstable patch to filter down to you. If you're running Unstable, security fixes should be quickly integrated into your regular flood of updates.
emerge -U world
will update all packages - these are functionality updates as well as security updates. As far as we are aware, Gentoo doesn't provide just security updates to its reference platforms.
Knoppix is designed to boot of a read-only media such as a CDROM and no security patches are issued. It's important to check that you're using a copy of the most recent version of Knoppix if you are using it for non-trivial tasks.
No page links to KeepingLinuxSecure.
