automated package upgrades

[Gustavo Niemeyer]

Hello Jeff,

> What is the current wisdom regarding automated package upgrades, especially
> when kernel upgrades occur?
> 
> Say I enable automated daily upgrades via a cron job, e.g.
>     smart upgrade --update
> 
> which then in turn upgrades the kernel.  Will the system then be "unstable"
> until I manually reboot?  (I recall other systems that advise rebooting soon
> after upgrading the kernel.) If so, are there recommendations for how to handle
> kernel upgrades when smart is configured to upgrade packages via cron?

This is dependent on the distribution.  Smart will only handle the
low-level operation of actually downloading the package and getting
it installed.  If some additional operation is needed after that
completes (IOW, not some script that is embedded into the upgrading
procedure itself), you'll have to keep this in mind and take the
necessary actions.

-- 
Gustavo Niemeyer
http://niemeyer.net