An attempt to do this fails: [root@gatekeeper rpm]# yum update > /tmp/out 2>&1 & [1] 29203 Nothing is written to /tmp/out, so there is no clear indication that yum is doing anything. The only way to kill yum is with -9.
This works for me here. You may be hitting the point where it prompts and it's not flushing the output. Try using yum -y.