SLES still sucks

but this makes it suck less:

automatic update at your command-

It still doesn't do the right thing with a kernel (it upgrades instead of installs leaving modules broken and your currently running machine in bad need of a reboot), so it is dangerous in some ways.

Just FYI here is the magic:

ssh -n $HOSTNAME "which online_update && online_update -gVu http://servername/YOU/ && online_update -iV"

This executes the command "which online_update" and if that is successful runs online_update to download packages from your You server (yast2 can help you make one, that works) to the local box, then if that is successful online_updates from the packages on the local box. No other combination of switches appears to work update a machine via online_update. SLES needs to download then install.

RHEL/CentOS does the right thing with the kernel and only requires a "which yum && yum -y update" and you can run your own repositories if you use yum, like I do, so it is still better (if you use up2date, that is okay too- but yum does better with the repositories.

The reason I run "which commandname" is to avoid trying to yum a SLES box and online_update a CentOS.

I can feed the script file a list of servers and it will go patch the lot. You can save the output and have a list of patched boxes.