Bug 2054235

1. Proposed title of this feature request
Offline updates

3. What is the nature and description of the request?
Customer is requesting the ability to apply updates offline, that is, to have the updates downloaded normally and then reboot the system into a minimal environment where updates are applied, followed by a second reboot into normal mode.

4. Why does the customer need this? (List the business requirements here)
Customer is encountering applications that react badly to the operating system being patched and applications that fail to stop in a timely manner. The combination of these two factors make online (normal) updates undesirable.
Customer would avoid these issues by being able to apply the updates in a minimal environment where no disruption to other applications is possible.

5. How would the customer like to achieve this? (List the functional requirements here)
Customer would like to have "offline-upgrade" command from dnf plug-in "system-upgrade" made available in RHEL.
Command "system-upgrade" would not apply to RHEL, leapp takes care of that.

6. For each functional requirement listed, specify how Red Hat and the customer can test to confirm the requirement is successfully implemented.
Customer will download the updates as usual using command "dnf offline-upgrade download".
After that customer will run command "dnf offline-upgrade reboot" to reboot the system into systemd system-update target, which will apply the downloaded updates and reboot the system once more into its usual target.

7. Is there already an existing RFE upstream or in Red Hat Bugzilla?
Yes, BZ 1382063 - RFE - Expand Upgrade function to optionally perform "offline" upgrades

8. Does the customer have any specific timeline dependencies and which release would they like to target (i.e. RHEL8, RHEL9)?
Customer is currently engineering RHEL 8 internal build and will temporarily rely on PackageKit to achieve this functionality.
Customer would like to see this RFE delivered to RHEL 8 before its full support phase ends, to be able to pivot from PackageKit to dnf and keep a supported patching process during future ELS phase.

9. Is the sales team involved in this request and do they have any additional input?
Yes.

10. List any affected packages or components.
dnf-plugins-extras

11. Would the customer be able to assist in testing this functionality if implemented?
Most certainly.