Updating an Instance

You can use Oracle Ksplice to patch a system without requiring a reboot. However, these updates only occur in-memory. You must also update packages on-disk to their latest versions, so that when the system reboots, it starts from the most current release. Follow the recommendations in Maintaining the System.

You can use OS Management Hub to manage and monitor updates for the OS environments Oracle Linux instances. OS Management Hub allows you to group instances for updates, providing automated patch and fleet management capabilities. See Oracle Linux Package Management for more information.

Autonomous Linux can automatically handle system package updates on a regular schedule. Autonomous Linux provides automatic daily updates in addition to the zero-downtime Ksplice updates for kernel, OpenSSL, and glibc libraries. These updates are referred to as autonomous updates. When you create an Autonomous Linux instance, the service automatically creates a controlled scheduled job for autonomous updates. You can update the start time for the daily autonomous updates using the Console, CLI, or API.

Regularly update the operating system and user space packages to obtain the latest bug fixes and security patches.

Oracle recommends that you:

1. Subscribe the instance to the _latest yum repository for your Oracle Linux release.

2. Update any software that was installed outside of the Oracle Linux yum package manager.

   For example, tools such as flatpak and snap, for installing desktop applications; and pip, gem and npm, for installing Python, Ruby and Node libraries and modules, all have their own software update mechanisms.

3. Always update instances to the most recent release of the operating system.

   Oracle Linux uses a rolling update level approach for keeping software up to date. For example, Oracle Linux 8.4 or Oracle Linux 8 Update 4, are rolling snapshots of the latest supported packages for the Oracle Linux release and are not considered independent versions of Oracle Linux.

4. Manually update packages or install and configure the appropriate tool for automatic updates.

   • For Oracle Linux 7 instances you can use the yum-cron utility described in Oracle Linux 7: Managing Software.
   • For Oracle Linux 8 and 9 instances you can use the dnf-automatic utility described in Oracle Linux 8: Managing Software on Oracle Linux and Oracle Linux 9: Managing Software in Oracle Linux.