Automatic Updates for Ubuntu - with all updates.

Call me a risk taker, I allow all of my systems to update everything automatically. Managing 50+ systems on a daily basis can become a daunting task if you don’t. I would rather cleanup after a bad update than after an attack. At least with the update I know what happened. This is why I configured automatic updates for Ubuntu.

So here is how I configure Automatic Updates in Ubuntu:
Packages needed: cron-apt, unattended-upgrades

apt-get install cron-apt
apt-get install unattended-upgrades

That’s it for the packages, now let’s get things configured:

First we need to edit the 50unattended-upgrades file located in /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/. I use nano, you can us any editor you are comfortable with.

nano /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/50unattended-upgrades
Mine looks like this:

// Automatically upgrade packages from these (origin:archive) pairs
Unattended-Upgrade::Allowed-Origins {
        "${distro_id}:${distro_codename}-security";
        "${distro_id}:${distro_codename}-updates";
//      "${distro_id}:${distro_codename}-proposed";
//      "${distro_id}:${distro_codename}-backports";
};

// List of packages to not update (regexp are supported)
Unattended-Upgrade::Package-Blacklist {
//      "vim";
//      "libc6";
//      "libc6-dev";
//      "libc6-i686";
};

// This option allows you to control if on a unclean dpkg exit
// unattended-upgrades will automatically run
//   dpkg --force-confold --configure -a
// The default is true, to ensure updates keep getting installed
//Unattended-Upgrade::AutoFixInterruptedDpkg "false";

// Split the upgrade into the smallest possible chunks so that
// they can be interrupted with SIGUSR1. This makes the upgrade
// a bit slower but it has the benefit that shutdown while a upgrade
// is running is possible (with a small delay)
//Unattended-Upgrade::MinimalSteps "true";

// Install all unattended-upgrades when the machine is shuting down
// instead of doing it in the background while the machine is running
// This will (obviously) make shutdown slower
//Unattended-Upgrade::InstallOnShutdown "true";

// Send email to this address for problems or packages upgrades
// If empty or unset then no email is sent, make sure that you
// have a working mail setup on your system. A package that provides
// 'mailx' must be installed. E.g. "[email protected]"
//Unattended-Upgrade::Mail "root";

// Set this value to "true" to get emails only on errors. Default
// is to always send a mail if Unattended-Upgrade::Mail is set
//Unattended-Upgrade::MailOnlyOnError "true";

// Do automatic removal of new unused dependencies after the upgrade
// (equivalent to apt-get autoremove)
Unattended-Upgrade::Remove-Unused-Dependencies "true";

// Automatically reboot *WITHOUT CONFIRMATION*
//  if the file /var/run/reboot-required is found after the upgrade
Unattended-Upgrade::Automatic-Reboot "true";

// If automatic reboot is enabled and needed, reboot at the specific
// time instead of immediately
//  Default: "now"
Unattended-Upgrade::Automatic-Reboot-Time "04:00";

// Use apt bandwidth limit feature, this example limits the download
// speed to 70kb/sec
//Acquire::http::Dl-Limit "70";

I simply edited the comment ” // ” out of these lines. too enable non-critical or non-security updates. This will allow all of the updates I want.

//  "${distro_id}:${distro_codename}-security";
//  "${distro_id}:${distro_codename}-updates";

which now reads

"${distro_id}:${distro_codename}-security";
"${distro_id}:${distro_codename}-updates";

Then I changed

// Unattended-Upgrade::Remove-Unused-Dependencies "false";

Unattended-Upgrade::Remove-Unused-Dependencies "true";

which does the cleanup of unneeded dependencies.

Next I changed the lines that reads

// Unattended-Upgrade::Automatic-Reboot "false";

to read

Unattended-Upgrade::Automatic-Reboot "true";

to enable automated reboots

And finally, changed

// Unattended-Upgrade::Automatic-Reboot-Time "02:00";

to read as
```
Unattended-Upgrade::Automatic-Reboot-Time "04:00";
```
to allow automatic reboots at 4:00 am as necessary.
I didn’t make any other changes because I use monitoring software that reports update statuses.

Next we edit 10periodic (or 2periodic, I don’t think it matters. I’m not sure what the difference is, if there is any. I just know that some documentation reads 10 periodic and some 2periodic. I don’t recommend having both files, just use on or the other) Both files use commands that are well documented in the file /etc/cron.daily/apt. (There is no need to edit /etc/cron.daily/apt, just read it).

nano /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/10periodic

APT::Periodic::Enable "1";
APT::Periodic::Update-Package-Lists "1";
APT::Periodic::Download-Upgradeable-Packages "1";
APT::Periodic::AutocleanInterval "7";
APT::Periodic::Unattended-Upgrade "1";

Then verify that /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/20auto-upgrades is correct:

nano /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/20auto-upgrades

APT::Periodic::Update-Package-Lists "1";
APT::Periodic::Unattended-Upgrade "1";

Reboot your system and give it 24 hours. You should notice that all of you updates are being installed automagically!

Note: I set my automatic updates for Ubuntu happen daily, this is my preference, you may want to change it to weekly, to reduce overhead. I highly suggest reading the documentation to fully understand what is going on. This is simply a guide to how I do it, use it to get going then fine tune it to your preferences. Written for Ubuntu 14, works with Ubuntu 15 and 16, I’m testing 17.

Automatic Updates for Ubuntu – with all updates.

That’s it for the packages, now let’s get things configured:

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