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Thomas Aichinger
Asked: 2018-08-10 04:21:34 +0800 CST

unattended-upgrades do not work properly

  • 772

I have

Welcome to Ubuntu 16.04.5 LTS (GNU/Linux 4.15.0-24-generic x86_64)

15 packages can be updated.
7 updates are security updates.

I watched this several weeks and tried so many things to fix it, but I cant get it run. Unattended-upgrades do not upgrade my server.

I installed

# apt-get install unattended-upgrades
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
unattended-upgrades is already the newest version (0.90ubuntu0.9).
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 9 not upgraded.

# apt-get install apt-listchanges
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
apt-listchanges is already the newest version (2.85.14ubuntu1).
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 9 not upgraded.

This is my /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/10periodic

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

This is my /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/50unattended-upgrades

Unattended-Upgrade::Allowed-Origins {
        "${distro_id}:${distro_codename}";
        "${distro_id}:${distro_codename}-security";
        "${distro_id}ESM:${distro_codename}";
        "${distro_id}:${distro_codename}-updates";
};

Unattended-Upgrade::Package-Blacklist {
        "open-vm-tools";
};

Unattended-Upgrade::AutoFixInterruptedDpkg "true";
Unattended-Upgrade::MinimalSteps "true";
Unattended-Upgrade::InstallOnShutdown "true";
Unattended-Upgrade::Mail "root";
Unattended-Upgrade::MailOnlyOnError "true";
Unattended-Upgrade::Remove-Unused-Dependencies "true";
Unattended-Upgrade::Automatic-Reboot "true";
Unattended-Upgrade::Automatic-Reboot-Time "07:00";
Acquire::http::Dl-Limit "0";

This is what I have in log-file /var/log/unattended-upgrades/unattended-upgrades.log

INFO Initial blacklisted packages: open-vm-tools
INFO Initial whitelisted packages:
INFO Starting unattended upgrades script
INFO Allowed origins are: ['o=Ubuntu,a=xenial', 'o=Ubuntu,a=xenial-security', 'o=UbuntuESM,a=xenial', 'o=Ubuntu,a=xenial-updates']
INFO Initial blacklisted packages: open-vm-tools
INFO Initial whitelisted packages:
INFO Starting unattended upgrades script
INFO Allowed origins are: ['o=Ubuntu,a=xenial', 'o=Ubuntu,a=xenial-security', 'o=UbuntuESM,a=xenial', 'o=Ubuntu,a=xenial-updates']

Does anyone have a clue what is wrong?

upgrade unattended-upgrades

4 Answers

  1. Contrary to the answer above my: "/etc/apt/apt.conf.d/50unattended-upgrades" did have:

    Unattended-Upgrade::InstallOnShutdown "false";

    Yet I still was seeing:

    Welcome to Ubuntu 18.04.3 LTS (GNU/Linux [...] x86_64)
[...]
29 packages can be updated.
0 updates are security updates.

    So why were these 29 packages not updated?

    As it turns out, "/etc/apt/apt.conf.d/50unattended-upgrades" also contained this declaration:

    Unattended-Upgrade::Allowed-Origins {
        "${distro_id}:${distro_codename}";
        "${distro_id}:${distro_codename}-security";
        // Extended Security Maintenance; doesn't necessarily exist for
        // every release and this system may not have it installed, but if
        // available, the policy for updates is such that unattended-upgrades
        // should also install from here by default.
        "${distro_id}ESM:${distro_codename}";
//      "${distro_id}:${distro_codename}-updates";
//      "${distro_id}:${distro_codename}-proposed";
//      "${distro_id}:${distro_codename}-backports";
};

    The key to a fix for me was simply to uncomment this line:

    //      "${distro_id}:${distro_codename}-updates";
    • 8

  2. I found the reason:

    Unattended-Upgrade::InstallOnShutdown "true";

    This means that updates are only installed before a shutdown. Since I this machine is a 24/7 server updates never happened.

    • 3

  3. If it's still not working after following this answer by @cuedee, you can try doing a dry run and see if you get some sort of error message or warning.

    sudo unattended-upgrades -v -d

    In my case the output explained that my connection was metered (hotspot from mobile phone), and unattended-upgrades by default doesn't allow updates over metered connections. I changed it with the following line in /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/50unattended-upgrades:

    Unattended-Upgrade::Skip-Updates-On-Metered-Connections "false";
    • 3

  4. Another great reason that is hard to track down is if your /tmp or /var/ directory is mounted noexec as per any common CC guide. It'll cause post-inst scripts to fail and as such block the updates eternally. I don't know a safe solution for this, but suspect there's a way to tell apt to change the mount flags prior/after installing.

    • 0