Operating System Updates for Linux

Staff members in the Division of Information Technology (IT) regularly monitor security issues concerning Linux operating systems. Linux workstations that were loaded with the IT standard Red Hat Linux distribution will receive their patches automatically.

Members of the Rice community who maintain their own Linux workstations should regularly monitor the web sites of the operating system vendors, or subscribe to security mailing lists to stay current on all security issues. Failure to do so may result in a security compromise of the workstation from an off-campus attacker. A security compromise will likely result in the workstation being temporarily disabled on the network in the minimal case, to complete data loss in the worst case. In all situations there will be considerable disruption to the operation of the workstation.

Those who have paid for and installed their own version of Red Hat Enterprise 3 should follow the instructions during installation to subscribe to Red Hat's up2date service (Red Hat Network) in order to receive automatic patch installation. Those who have installed their own version of the free Red Hat Linux (version 9 and below) should be aware that Red Hat is no longer providing patches or security advisories for these versions. The only version supported by Red Hat is the commercially available Red Hat Enterprise. However, a few patches may be obtained for the obsolete versions at the Fedora Legacy Project web site. This site should be monitored regularly for security advisories. In addition, CERT/CC supplies security advisories for a wide range of operating systems and software and is an excellent source of information.