Hello list,

I am happily using Spacewalk for managing our systems for years and I have question about clients machine upgrade process.

- We are using virtualization environment where on single host are running ~20 virtual systems (and several virtualization hosts are available). - I am updating package channels one every week (just RHEL 6.x x64_86 systems) by crond script. - And for upgrading machines, I simply choose all client systems from list, click on "manage" and then on "upgrade" links and apply all relevant upgrade packages at once.

but within some weeks there are lot of upgraded packages available including kernel and selinux packages, which consumes more resources of virtualization hosts like standard/other/smaller packages. If I use same upgrade process described bellow for upgrade package bundle including kernel packages, the virtualization host is obviously utilized and disk utilization increased to maximum.This results to slower service availability and I am also afraid about disk arrays if this very high utilization can cause some troubles for them.

Now I am wondering if there is way to use serialized (machine-per-machine) upgrade process instead of parallel (all machine at once) process without manual intervention by admin. As I can see from upgrade wizard I can only choose to "Install updates ASAP" or "Schedule upgrade process to specified time". I also wondered about some manual upgrade process in way that I choose only some virtuals from list instead of all, but I need to identify which virtuals is hosted on which virt. host. Yes, I can create groups (of uncollision machines from different virtual host) for such upgrade to minimize disk utilization, but it is not very handy and more time by admin needs to be consumed to update all machines.

Is there any other options that I have not yet recognized (i.e. using via CLI instead of WebGUI) that can help me with such problems? I am wondering about two options:

1. serializing installation per virtual machine instead of all-at-once behavior which is available now. this have advantage mainly in cases - when two redundant machines are serving same service (i.e. coroporate directory) and directory process needs to be restarted in oder to upgrade this package - which cause service unavailability at all as both virtuals will be in upgrade process at same time.

2. second way can be work similar like with clam.d process upgrade like we know - it us running on daily basis, but the upgrade process is executed in random time within next four hour from executing this script by cron process. So I am talking about choice "Upgrade randomly within XX hours/minutes per every selected machine from now". This will spread upgrade process of all selected machines randomly over defined time interval. And of course the disk utilization will be not so high utilized.

What do you think about those proposals?

thank you

--
Ing. Michal Bruncko, PhD., CCNP, RHCSAâ„¢
IT systems and network administrator
Coupled school of business and services Ruzomberok
Slovak Republic

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