Printable View
I was wondering if their was a program out there that will auto update all services you have running on your server. Or if there is a single unified database that contains all these updates from one source and is updated regularly. Is there such a place on the net, or do you have to continually visit each vendor's site for updates? Primamrily I would like to know if one program could activly search for all updates for all services.
What OS?
xmaddness...I've been trying out a site called www.bigfix.com ....seems pretty decent thus far, but I don't know if it's exactly what you're looking for or not. Hope this helped. :)
I submitted a little tutorial to update and refresh patches for Mandrake Linux using rsync a while back, you can run as a cron job.
http://www.antionline.com/showthread...hreadid=231758
I think this can be modified for any *nix if you are using that OS. You can chose which site is updated most regularly and nominate that for your download site.
If you're running a Windows-based server, there are multiple programs out there which will update many components. I currently use UpdateEXPERT, a program which centralizes and distributes updates for Windows, Office, IE, IIS, SQL, Exchange and Windows Media.
I know others exist, as well, including the Shavic Technologies whose software was used to make Microsoft's HFNetChk and Baseline Security Analyzer. Their enterprise products handle more software than UpdateEXPERT, but it's also more expensive.
In response to allenb, I've played around with BigFix but I'm not too thrilled with it. It has only a short list of supported software and it can't distribute updates across multiple servers or workstations. If you are looking for somethine like BigFix which lists updates/upgrades, I'd go with Norton Web which has a much larger database of programs.
AJ
In M$ most recent release of patch and what-nots. They have added a new feature to W2k WXP If you patch to SP3 (it was actually released just before SP3 but not sure which update it was exactly) You now have an ICON in your control panel that is called "Automatic Updates" This allows for the regualr check and DL of patches.
Mind you I have configured mine and all of my servers to have this feature disabled. I have stopped the service that installs with it also. I just don't trust any update from DLing and installing without my knowledge. I want to know what happened to cause the server to crash rather then just find it dead one morining having to try and back track to find out why only to discover it was a faulty pathc from M$ (Not like they havent done that before)...
Thanks for all the reples. I honestly wouldn't trust M$'s updates either.
What I was really interested in was more of the *nix side of it. With all the various different dameons they have. I'm actually pondering on writing a software to do this, thats why I ask if there was one already made for it. I would like to create a SQL database that will store all the latest updates and bugs and have the update software check itself against that database. I would make it just sort of notify you of an update and allow you to check it out and see if it's needed yourself.
Thanks for all the reples, I have some reasearch to do now.
Personally i wouldnt trust ANY automatic update system. While it is nearly impossible to keep up with all Microsnot's updates manually, I prefer to wait for time to prove out new updates for anything critical. Whether it be Cisco IOS patches, Microsnot products or any other critical application updates.
Emergency, real-time fixes for known problems and/or active exploits, of course, are always put in ASAP.
How many false positives have we all gotten fron auto update of AntiVirus proggies? Only to be followed by the next one one day later - that "oops, we screwed up with our last patch" patch.
If I had a lab with playground computers to test with it would be a different story but
... c'est la vie.
Try this link & let me know what you think about it:http://download.com.com/3000-2094-8581683.html