Question : How to make an exclusion list so that anyone running the command “yum update” will not download any kernel patches ?
Answer :
This can be done using 2 ways :
1. yum configuration file yum.conf (permanent)
2. Using command line options
Using yum.conf
1. From the man page of yum.conf :
# man yum.conf exclude List of packages to exclude from updates or installs. This should be a space separated list. Shell globs using wildcards (eg.* and ?) are allowed.
2. This would need to be under the “[main]” section in yum.conf, on the client.
# vi /etc/yum.conf [main] cachedir=/var/cache/yum/$basearch/$releasever keepcache=0 debuglevel=2 logfile=/var/log/yum.log exactarch=1 obsoletes=1 gpgcheck=1 plugins=1 installonly_limit=3 # Exclude Kernel Updates exclude=kernel* # PUT YOUR REPOS HERE OR IN separate files named file.repo # in /etc/yum.repos.d
3. Verify that you don’t see a kernel package in the installable packages when you run yum update command :
# yum update
From command line
This is temporary and we need to give the exclusion list on command line.
# yum --exclude=kernel* update