Update 2016: I nowadays just use
emerge --sync; emerge @security
To keep my Gentoo up to date, I use daily and weekly update scripts which also always run revdep-rebuild after the saturday night update :)
My daily update is via pkgcore [1] to pull in all important security updates:
pmerge @glsa
That pulls in the Gentoo Linux Security Advisories - important updates with mostly short compile time. (You need pkgcore for that: "emerge pkgcore")
Also I use two cron scripts.
Note: It might be useful to add the lafilefixer to these scripts (source [2]).
The following is my daily update (in /etc/cron.daily/update_glsa_programs.cron )
\#! /bin/sh \### Update the portage tree and the glsa packages via pkgcore \# spew a status message echo $(date) "start to update GLSA" >> /tmp/cron-update.log \# Sync only portage pmaint sync /usr/portage \# security relevant programs pmerge -uDN @glsa > /tmp/cron-update-pkgcore-last.log || cat \ /tmp/cron-update-pkgcore-last.log >> /tmp/cron-update.log \# And keep everything working revdep-rebuild \# Finally update all configs which can be updated automatically cfg-update -au echo $(date) "finished updating GLSA" >> /tmp/cron-update.log
And here's my weekly cron - executed every saturday night (in /etc/cron.weekly/update_installed_programs.cron ):
\#!/bin/sh \### Update my computer using pgkcore, \### since that also works if some dependencies couldn't be resolved. \# Sync all overlays eix-sync \## First use pkgcore \# security relevant programs (with build-time dependencies (-B)) pmerge -BuD @glsa \# system, world and all the rest pmerge -BuD @system pmerge -BuD @world pmerge -BuD @installed \# Then use portage for packages pkgcore misses (inlcuding overlays) \# and for *EMERGE_DEFAULT_OPTS="--keep-going"* in make.conf emerge -uD @security emerge -uD @system emerge -uD @world emerge -uD @installed \# And keep everything working emerge @preserved-rebuild revdep-rebuild \# Finally update all configs which can be updated automatically cfg-update -au
Links:
[1] http://pkgcore.org
[2] http://mczyzewski.com/post/keeping-your-gentoo-clean