Linux Patch Management: Keeping Linux Systems Up To Date

Command line operations are called out with a monospaced font. The prompt is assumed; for example, the following command would be run at a Linux command line interface:

up2date --show-channel

Commands are often included in the text of a paragraph in a similar monospaced font. For example, if you see up2date --show-channel, you could type that text in a command line interface.

Many URLs in this book do not include a prefix such as http://, unless the context is not obvious. For example, when we refer to the vsFTP home page at vsftpd.beasts.org, we are referring to the associated Web page. But remember, there are other TCP/IP ports and prefixes, such as ftp://, rsync://, and file:///.

Long commands are written on multiple lines for clarity (as shown here), but should be typed on one line. A backslash (\) is inserted in the line to indicate that it is all one line; for example,

rsync -av --exclude debug \ rsync://mirrors.kernel.org/fedora/core/updates/3/i386/* \ /var/ftp/pub/yum/3/i386/updates/

Notes, Warnings, and Tips appear in the text as follows:

Note

Particular points that need to be emphasized appear in a box to alert you.

Warning

The warning box is used to emphasize an issue or concern that might be encountered and should be avoided.

Tip

A box labeled with the above denotes information that is specifically useful.