Bugtraq mailing list archives

Re: Keeping Solaris up-to-date


From: corey () PHIX COM (Corey Lindsly)
Date: Thu, 14 Jan 1999 21:52:13 -0800


Is it really a good idea to run a script as root via cron from an
NFS-mounted directory?  What if someone breaks root on one machine,
does a quick 'su' and replaces your NFS-mounted script?  Seems
they would own all 50 machines by morning.

not only that, but some Solaris patches have been known
to break systems and render them strange or unbootable
(shocking, i know). the sensible approach, instead of
automatically and blindly installing patches, might be
to test each patch on one machine before applying it
to the other 49 machines, lest you end up with 50
broken machines in the morning.

perhaps some sysadmin functions are best left semi-automated.

---corey



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