How to sent email when reboot is required after update?

Support Software & Applications
1

I already configured email using the Arch wiki, so my system can easily sent emails, for example:
mail -s "blabla" default would sent an email to the default configured email address.
or alternatively:
printf "Subject: this is a subject\nthis is a body." | msmtp -a default

What I would like to do:

*after running pamac update -a --no-confirm, run a command that checks if a reboot is required after updating is finished. If the output of that command is “yes”, run a mail-s or msmtp coomand.

I have no clue how to do the part in bold. Could an expert point me in the right direction?

2

I think there is a package called needsrestart

2 Likes
3

You need to run the check before updating the system.

#!/usr/bin/env bash
reboot="(ucode|cryptsetup|linux|nvidia|mesa|systemd|wayland|xf86-video|xorg)"
if [[ $(which yay) =~ (yay) ]]; then
    updates=$(checkupdates; yay -Qua)
else
    updates=$(checkupdates)
fi
echo "$updates"
if [[ $updates =~ $reboot ]]; then
    echo "Updating possibly requires system restart ..."
fi

Replace the line

    echo "Updating possibly requires system restart ..."

with your send mail functionality - possibly injecting the content of the $updates variable into the mail body

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4

I’ve never checked, but do Arch-based systems not set the file /var/run/reboot-required?

I exploit this on my RPi running Debian.

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5

@mithrial thanks! That seems to be the way to go. But it only focuses on pacman. I learned from this forum, the best practice is to update using pamac. So I am not sure if it would be effective if I use pamac to update?

@linux-aarhus thanks that is basically a copy/paste solution already :slight_smile:
I am no expert at all… but it seems to be a whitelist of categories of packages. Could it be no reboot would be required (triggering a ‘false positive’) or, the opposite, for example if I run docker, perhaps a reboot is required (but not catched by this script) because docker is running and cannot be updated?

6

It is a keyword list - it is by no means the ultimate solution.

reboot="(ucode|cryptsetup|linux|nvidia|mesa|systemd|wayland|xf86-video|xorg)"

You can easily add the docker keyword to the list and you can remove keywords not applilcable.

E.g. the keyword nvidia is not necessary if you don’t have a Nvidia card.

1 Like
7

If you worry about the difference between pacman and pamac, I strongly advise against unattended upgrades.

8

I just follow best practice. I am not worried at all, since updating attendedly for me = using the update manager GUI and hitting a button. This is the same as running that pamac command.