patching the /etc/sysconfig/rhn/sources file

[Mel Seder]

Yesterday Fedora Core 2's up2date icon on the bottom right of my screen advised
that there were updates to be done.  I clicked on the up2date button and and
shortly thereafter I got a message adivising that there were no updates
required to be made.  That didn't sound right so I tried clicking on the
up2date button again.  This time it did the updates that needed doing.

I asked a friend last night what might be causing that and was advised that
using the stock sources file causes the up2date process to get updates in a
"round robin fashion",  that is, it trys more than one server to get the files
from.  If one of the servers doesn't have the newer files it thinks that my PC
is current when it's really not and says an update is not needed.  At least,
thats my understanding of the problem.

I went to our LUG site and found what appears to be a patch and is shown below
between the following two lines of "-"'s.
-------------------------------------------------------------------

--- /etc/sysconfig/rhn/sources.FC2	2004-05-11 15:14:59.000000000 -0500
+++ /etc/sysconfig/rhn/sources	2004-05-19 11:47:09.193300000 -0500
@@ -27,8 +27,8 @@
 ### format:
 ### type  channel-label     url 
 
-yum fedora-core-2
http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux/core/2/$ARCH/os/ 
-yum updates-released-fc2
http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux/core/updates/2/$ARCH/
+yum fedora-core-2 http://www.muug.mb.ca/pub/fedora/linux/core/2/$ARCH/os/ 
+yum updates-released-fc2
http://www.muug.mb.ca/pub/fedora/linux/core/updates/2/$ARCH/
 
 yum-mirror fedora-core-2
http://fedora.redhat.com/download/up2date-mirrors/fedora-core-2
 yum-mirror updates-released-fc2
http://fedora.redhat.com/download/up2date-mirrors/updates-released-fc2


-------------------------------------------------------------------

I looked up the patch command in "Running Linux" published by O'Reilly and it
seemed very complicated to me.  I googled and found the following link which
seems to be easier to read but there are still alot of terms that I am not
familiar with and would appreciate help.

Assuming the above patch file is named patchfile what command (as root?) would
be required?  The link http://www.die.net/doc/linux/man/man1/patch.1.html seems
to suggest a very short command might be needed,  "patch -pnum <patchfile".

I still don't know what command and options/switches I should be running and
would appreciate any help you can give me.


=====
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absolutely no good. -Samuel Johnson, lexicographer (1709-1784)
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