Unattended updates

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1

I have just installed Manjaro on another machine and am about to install yet another. Both of these machines will be mostly unattended - running in the background on a local network.

It occurs to me that the “Automatically download updates” feature may be useful for this method of use.

I am familiar with Debian’s Unattended Upgrades where an upgrade is downloaded and installed with an option to auto-reboot or not Except for the reboot, is this what the Auto Download feature does?

Debian can send an email when an update is downloaded, with details of the packages updated, and in the event a reboot is required it includes that prominantly in the email’s subject line.

I have a feeling the above is not currently available nor will be soon?

2

Downloading the updates is not the same as installing the updates.

I think you could script your own with checking with pamac checkupdates.
According to the help, it will exit with error code 100 if there are updates available.

Edit: Something like this:

#!/usr/bin/env bash

output="$(pamac checkupdates)"

if [[ $? == 100 ]]; then
    echo "Updates available: ${output}" | mail
else
    echo "No updates available."
fi
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3

I wouldn’t do unattended upgrades, if I were you. It happens that there is human intervention required, or a config file changes, or something else, which you need to be in front off the computer, or at least a terminal session, to see and sort out before you restart.

That said, it would be possible to create a script that checks for updates routinely and send an email if there is. Or even do them. (But once again, I don’t recommend that.)

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4

Manjaro is not meant to do unattended upgrades. You can’t do unattended upgrades and expect things to work, because it will not at some point I’m confident about it.

Anyway, as it is always the case we say don’t do it, user do it anyway, so here you go so nobody wastes more time on that.

Could be a good base to make your own.

5

Thanks for the replies, guys. I will take your basic advice, which is “Don’t”.

The already-installed m/c is a seldom-used laptop so I’ll let it stay. The other m/c will be in daily use so I think I’ll go for Debian.

Thanks again.

6

I am using Manjaro on servers - no issue.

Updates can be performed using ssh - no big deal.

Put into your schedule to check the system on at specific intervals. Servers should be checked regularly anyway - logs and whatnot.

If your system(s) are uncomplicated - that is - without X - commandline only there is very little which may bork a system.

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