Set up unattended-upgrades on Ubuntu 20.04
Package upgrades can be set up to install updates on Ubuntu without user intervention.
Install unattended-upgrades
apt install unattended-upgrades
Install mailx
apt install bsd-mailx
This will install also install Postfix. mailx is what unattended upgrades
uses to send external mail.
Configure unattended-upgrades
Edit /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/50unattended-upgrades
. This file is mostly self explanatory. The options can be enabled by deleting un-commenting the line. At the very least, configure the following:
Unattended-Upgrade::Mail “your@email.com”;
to allow sending notifications to your e-mail address.Unattended-Upgrade::Automatic-Reboot “true”;
to enable auto-rebootsUnattended-Upgrade::Remove-Unused-Kernel-Packages “true”;
to remove kernel-related packages. This is usually done usingapt autoremove
.Unattended-Upgrade::Remove-New-Unused-Dependencies “true”;
- remove unneeded dependancies. Also manually done withapt autoremove
.Unattended-Upgrade::Remove-Unused-Dependencies “false”;
- remove unused packages, also,apt autoremove
.
Restart unattended-upgrades
systemctl restart unattended-upgrades
Configure Postfix
Edit /etc/postfix/main.cf
. Configuration of postfix is outside the scope of this article. For my purposes, I use a relay, so I edit and uncomment relayhost =
to point to my relay.
Test mail
mailx -vvv -s "Subject" your@e-mail.com
Press CTRL D
to send the email.
Test your set up
unattended-upgrades --dry-run -–debug