up2date, also known as the Red Hat Update Agent, is a tool used by older versions of Red Hat Enterprise Linux

Red Hat Enterprise Linux

Red Hat Enterprise Linux is a Linux-based operating system developed by Red Hat and targeted toward the commercial market. Red Hat Enterprise Linux is released in server versions for x86, x86-64, Itanium, PowerPC and IBM System z, and desktop versions for x86 and x86-64...

, CentOS

CentOS

CentOS is a free operating system based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux . It exists to provide a free enterprise class computing platform and strives to maintain 100% binary compatibility with its upstream distribution...

 and Fedora Core

Fedora (operating system)

Fedora is a RPM-based, general purpose collection of software, including an operating system based on the Linux kernel, developed by the community-supported Fedora Project and sponsored by Red Hat...

 that downloads and installs new software and upgrades the operating system. It functions as a front-end to the RPM Package Manager

RPM Package Manager

RPM Package Manager is a package management system. The name RPM variously refers to the .rpm file format, files in this format, software packaged in such files, and the package manager itself...

 and adds advanced features such as automatic dependency resolution. The file /etc/sysconfig/rhn/sources specifies where up2date will search for packages.

By default, Red Hat Enterprise Linux

Red Hat Enterprise Linux

Red Hat Enterprise Linux is a Linux-based operating system developed by Red Hat and targeted toward the commercial market. Red Hat Enterprise Linux is released in server versions for x86, x86-64, Itanium, PowerPC and IBM System z, and desktop versions for x86 and x86-64...

's up2date retrieves packages from a Red Hat Network

Red Hat Network

Red Hat Network is a family of systems management services operated by Red Hat that makes updates, patches, and bug fixes of packages included within Red Hat Linux and Red Hat Enterprise Linux available to subscribers...

 (RHN) server, though users can add directories full of packages or even Debian

Debian

Debian is a computer operating system composed of software packages released as free and open source software primarily under the GNU General Public License along with other free software licenses. Debian GNU/Linux, which includes the GNU OS tools and Linux kernel, is a popular and influential...

 and yum

Yellow dog Updater, Modified

The Yellowdog Updater, Modified is an open-source command-line package-management utility for RPM-compatible Linux operating systems and has been released under the GNU General Public License. It was developed by Seth Vidal and a group of volunteer programmers...

 repositories if they wish.

up2date on Fedora Core defaults to retrieving packages from yum

Yellow dog Updater, Modified

The Yellowdog Updater, Modified is an open-source command-line package-management utility for RPM-compatible Linux operating systems and has been released under the GNU General Public License. It was developed by Seth Vidal and a group of volunteer programmers...

 repositories. Again, other sources can be added (apart from RHN, which is Red Hat Enterprise Linux Specific). As of Fedora Core 5 and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5, up2date is no longer shipped with the distribution; yum is used instead.

CentOS

CentOS

CentOS is a free operating system based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux . It exists to provide a free enterprise class computing platform and strives to maintain 100% binary compatibility with its upstream distribution...

's up2date downloads packages from yum

Yellow dog Updater, Modified

The Yellowdog Updater, Modified is an open-source command-line package-management utility for RPM-compatible Linux operating systems and has been released under the GNU General Public License. It was developed by Seth Vidal and a group of volunteer programmers...

 repositories on the CentOS Mirror Network.

See also

• Package management system
  Package management system
  In software, a package management system, also called package manager, is a collection of software tools to automate the process of installing, upgrading, configuring, and removing software packages for a computer's operating system in a consistent manner...
  
  
• RPM Package Manager
  RPM Package Manager
  RPM Package Manager is a package management system. The name RPM variously refers to the .rpm file format, files in this format, software packaged in such files, and the package manager itself...
  
   (rpm)
• Yellow dog Updater Modified (yum)

External links

• up2date at redhat.com
• yum/up2date transitioning from up2date to yum