Re: [CentOS] a few simple questions about upgrading an "official" centos 7 release

[liza]

> On Feb 22, 2018, at 9:34 AM, hw  wrote:
> 
> Robert P. J. Day wrote:
>> On Thu, 22 Feb 2018, hw wrote:
>>> 
>>> The students you need to teach things like this are the ones that
>>> will never become good admins.
>>   uh, that's kind of a condescending attitude to take towards students
>> who simply want to learn. are you this way with everyone?
> 
> Yes, and there´s nothing condescending about this.  A student who is too
> chicken to try out basic things, be it within dedicated testing environments
> or, if need be, otherwise, will not become a good admin and is probably
> not a person well suited to bearing the responsibility that will be bestowed
> upon them, partly due to a lack of good judgement.

I was going to let this go, as we’re getting farther and farther from CentOS, 
but this has been bothering me. I don’t think you’ve evaluated how the attitude 
expressed in your statement would tend to encourage hotshots who dive in and 
make changes without knowing enough, and would tend to weed out inexperienced 
potential sysadmins who have any degree of caution. Confidence comes from 
knowledge, knowledge comes from practice… and there are a lot of potential 
sysadmins from non-standard backgrounds who have the potential to be great at 
the work, but need extra encouragement in the beginning, with a safe place to 
learn and make mistakes.

If my past teachers and mentors had had the attitude you expressed there, I’d 
never have gotten into systems administration—and I can tell that I’m going to 
be a good sysadmin, so that would have been a shame. (I’ve been in systems 
administration for a grand total of about five months, after over a decade in 
related IT work.)

Liza Furr
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Re: [CentOS] a few simple questions about upgrading an "official" centos 7 release

[hw]

Robert P. J. Day wrote:

On Thu, 22 Feb 2018, hw wrote:


Robert P. J. Day wrote:


   ... snip ...


oh, i appreciate the need for caution; on the other hand, it
always struck me that the training room is the *ideal* place for
students to experiment with things they're too nervous or unsure
of to try back at the office. this is typically why, when i'm
teaching, i save friday afternoon for trying things that are
typically not covered by standard courseware.

so as long as one delivers the proper caution, i see no problem
with something like, "ok, you might never have to do this at your
site, but just in case you ever need to upgrade your kernel, let's
try it and see what happens." so if the need ever arises, at least
they can say they've done it once and know what the end result is
supposed to be.


The students you need to teach things like this are the ones that
will never become good admins.


   uh, that's kind of a condescending attitude to take towards students
who simply want to learn. are you this way with everyone?


Yes, and there´s nothing condescending about this.  A student who is too
chicken to try out basic things, be it within dedicated testing environments
or, if need be, otherwise, will not become a good admin and is probably
not a person well suited to bearing the responsibility that will be bestowed
upon them, partly due to a lack of good judgement.

I think that is something you should teach your students --- in the hope that
their attitude may change.  Isn´t that your intention to begin with?
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Re: [CentOS] a few simple questions about upgrading an "official" centos 7 release

[Robert P. J. Day]

On Thu, 22 Feb 2018, hw wrote:

> Robert P. J. Day wrote:

  ... snip ...

> >oh, i appreciate the need for caution; on the other hand, it
> > always struck me that the training room is the *ideal* place for
> > students to experiment with things they're too nervous or unsure
> > of to try back at the office. this is typically why, when i'm
> > teaching, i save friday afternoon for trying things that are
> > typically not covered by standard courseware.
> >
> >so as long as one delivers the proper caution, i see no problem
> > with something like, "ok, you might never have to do this at your
> > site, but just in case you ever need to upgrade your kernel, let's
> > try it and see what happens." so if the need ever arises, at least
> > they can say they've done it once and know what the end result is
> > supposed to be.
>
> The students you need to teach things like this are the ones that
> will never become good admins.

  uh, that's kind of a condescending attitude to take towards students
who simply want to learn. are you this way with everyone?

rday
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Re: [CentOS] a few simple questions about upgrading an "official" centos 7 release

[hw]

Robert P. J. Day wrote:

On Thu, 22 Feb 2018, Pete Biggs wrote:





   finally, any concerns i should have about upgrading the kernel from
3.10 to 4.14 or 4.15, as explained in a number of places like this:

https://www.tecmint.com/install-upgrade-kernel-version-in-centos-7/

   i simply prefer to run a current kernel but i can resist the
temptation if upgrading that on a centos 7.4 system would introduce
more problems than are worth it.


The only reason to use a kernel version that isn't provided with the
distro is if the newer kernel provides features that you **NEED**.

Remember, the whole point of something like CentOS is to provide a
stable, solid OS. This requires a whole bunch of testing of the OS
as a whole - and RHEL (and hence CentOS) does all that testing using
kernels it provides. What's more RH will backport critical kernel
updates if appropriate - so it's not the case that an older kernel
is lacking in security.

I seem to remember you said you were going to teach using these
machines - surely you want those machines to be as stable and as
standard as possible to the machines the students will find in the
wild. I would definitely not encourage students to upgrade kernels -
novices sysadmins don't need an extra level of uncertainty in their
life!


   oh, i appreciate the need for caution; on the other hand, it always
struck me that the training room is the *ideal* place for students to
experiment with things they're too nervous or unsure of to try back at
the office. this is typically why, when i'm teaching, i save friday
afternoon for trying things that are typically not covered by standard
courseware.

   so as long as one delivers the proper caution, i see no problem with
something like, "ok, you might never have to do this at your site, but
just in case you ever need to upgrade your kernel, let's try it and
see what happens." so if the need ever arises, at least they can say
they've done it once and know what the end result is supposed to be.


The students you need to teach things like this are the ones that will
never become good admins.
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Re: [CentOS] a few simple questions about upgrading an "official" centos 7 release

[Robert P. J. Day]

On Thu, 22 Feb 2018, Pete Biggs wrote:

>
> >
> >   finally, any concerns i should have about upgrading the kernel from
> > 3.10 to 4.14 or 4.15, as explained in a number of places like this:
> >
> > https://www.tecmint.com/install-upgrade-kernel-version-in-centos-7/
> >
> >   i simply prefer to run a current kernel but i can resist the
> > temptation if upgrading that on a centos 7.4 system would introduce
> > more problems than are worth it.
> >
> The only reason to use a kernel version that isn't provided with the
> distro is if the newer kernel provides features that you **NEED**.
>
> Remember, the whole point of something like CentOS is to provide a
> stable, solid OS. This requires a whole bunch of testing of the OS
> as a whole - and RHEL (and hence CentOS) does all that testing using
> kernels it provides. What's more RH will backport critical kernel
> updates if appropriate - so it's not the case that an older kernel
> is lacking in security.
>
> I seem to remember you said you were going to teach using these
> machines - surely you want those machines to be as stable and as
> standard as possible to the machines the students will find in the
> wild. I would definitely not encourage students to upgrade kernels -
> novices sysadmins don't need an extra level of uncertainty in their
> life!

  oh, i appreciate the need for caution; on the other hand, it always
struck me that the training room is the *ideal* place for students to
experiment with things they're too nervous or unsure of to try back at
the office. this is typically why, when i'm teaching, i save friday
afternoon for trying things that are typically not covered by standard
courseware.

  so as long as one delivers the proper caution, i see no problem with
something like, "ok, you might never have to do this at your site, but
just in case you ever need to upgrade your kernel, let's try it and
see what happens." so if the need ever arises, at least they can say
they've done it once and know what the end result is supposed to be.

rday
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Re: [CentOS] a few simple questions about upgrading an "official" centos 7 release

[Pete Biggs]

> 
>   finally, any concerns i should have about upgrading the kernel from
> 3.10 to 4.14 or 4.15, as explained in a number of places like this:
> 
> https://www.tecmint.com/install-upgrade-kernel-version-in-centos-7/
> 
>   i simply prefer to run a current kernel but i can resist the
> temptation if upgrading that on a centos 7.4 system would introduce
> more problems than are worth it.
> 
The only reason to use a kernel version that isn't provided with the
distro is if the newer kernel provides features that you **NEED**.

Remember, the whole point of something like CentOS is to provide a
stable, solid OS. This requires a whole bunch of testing of the OS as a
whole - and RHEL (and hence CentOS) does all that testing using kernels
it provides. What's more RH will backport critical kernel updates if
appropriate - so it's not the case that an older kernel is lacking in
security.

I seem to remember you said you were going to teach using these
machines - surely you want those machines to be as stable and as
standard as possible to the machines the students will find in the
wild. I would definitely not encourage students to upgrade kernels -
novices sysadmins don't need an extra level of uncertainty in their
life!

P.

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Re: [CentOS] a few simple questions about upgrading an "official" centos 7 release

[Liam O'Toole]

On 2018-02-22, Robert P. J. Day
 wrote:
>
>   again, some fairly trivial(?) questions about working with centos
>   7.4, given my time immersed in fedora so i want to make sure i'm not
>   carrying over any bad habits.
>
>   first, is there anything untoward in updating an installed version
>   of centos 7.4 with a simple "yum update"? i'm well aware of keeping
>   in mind the goal of stability with centos, so am unsure what the
>   philosophy is of pulling in new updates as cavalierly as i do with
>   fedora. currently, "yum list updates" shows me 206 possible updates;
>   should i have any concern about updating packages coming from the
>   standard centos repos?

No. The updates provided over an x.y series are relatively minor and
generally well tested. It's very different to the version churn
associated with Fedora. The updates also include important security
fixes, and it's not advisable to try to apply those in isolation. But I
would add the usual caveat: if you're doing anything business-critical
with your installation, test the upgrade on comparable hardware first.

>
>   next, are there any issues replacing yum wihth dnf? i found this
> piece:
>
> https://www.vultr.com/docs/use-dnf-to-manage-software-packages-on-centos-7
>
> which suggests it shouldn't be a problem. thoughts?

Being from the EPEL repository, dnf is not supported by CentOS. So I
would avoid using it on a machine which serves a critical function.

>   finally, any concerns i should have about upgrading the kernel from
> 3.10 to 4.14 or 4.15, as explained in a number of places like this:
>
> https://www.tecmint.com/install-upgrade-kernel-version-in-centos-7/
>
>   i simply prefer to run a current kernel but i can resist the
> temptation if upgrading that on a centos 7.4 system would introduce
> more problems than are worth it.
>
>   thoughts?

Again, EL Repo packages are not supported by CentOS. Therefore the above
warnings apply here too.

If, on the other hand, you can afford to tinker with the system and
experiment a bit, then go for it. Oh, and welcome to the CentOS
community.

>
> rday

-- 

Liam

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