step 2: ensure that your server software is up to date

A tool used on CentOS to update packages is yum. You will use this tool a lot during the next hours, to update packages already installed, download and install new packages. A very nice feature is that yum will automatically resolve dependencies of the packages you want to install and install the dependencies required by the package you have choosen.

To get a list of available updates (without installing them right away), type the following command:

# yum list updates

To download the updates and install them, type the following command:

# yum update

or with the -y option if you want to automatically answer yes to questions that yum may ask

# yum -y update