Q: What help is required in verifying packages in updates-testing?

The purpose of testing packages in updates-testing is to check whether the upgraded rpms break an SME Server due to some side-effect. It is not necessary to verify the actual fix, although if this is done it should be noted.

In the wiki it is summarised as "Use the package as normal and publish the results."

In the Fedora Legacy wiki it says
"Could you use the package, as appropriate for the package, without problems"
And for more detail
"The time needed to test a package will vary for each package. The steps needed will also vary. For example, for a simple application, you may just use it for a few minutes as you normally would, and verify that it works for the normal tasks you do with that application. On the other hand, for a kernel update, you would want to run it for a least a couple of days to see if any problems develop before reporting success."

As the Fedora Legacy project can not detail the testing required it would be hard for the SME Server community to do this, although this could be a goal for the future.

Even a single test per package would increase the confidence that the updates are good. Preferably a lot more would be done - but we don't yet have the test cases.

Q: How does one get the updates applied for testing using yum (from updates-testing)

if you have the latest yum installed then the updates-testing section should be commented out

#[updates-testing]
#name=SME Server $releasever updates-testing
#baseurl=http://mirror.contribs.org/smeserver/releases/$releasever/updates-testing/i386/
#gpgcheck=0

remove the #'s to enable updates-testing. They can then be installed as usual. To see the available updates

Q: if a problem is found, how does one "rollback" the changes ?

You can find the old RPM from the mirrors, and install it with rpm's -oldpackage as shown here for cvs.

Q Is "no problems found" the kind of feedback you are looking for, or do you only want feedback when a problem is found?

Examples are:
http://bugs.contribs.org/bug_view_page.php?bug_id=0000248
http://bugs.contribs.org/bug_view_page.php?bug_id=0000259

Please add a bug note for each package tested even if it is 'no problems found'. In 95+% of cases the feedback will be 'no problems found' as the updates have some testing before reaching this far. It is good when the Bug Report can give some details about what is tested.