I’ve got four servers right now, and was wondering if someone had written a program to email the system adminstrator if there are any updates needed. Yep: apticron
Obviously, you need to be using Debian, or a derivative.
$ sudo -s
# apt install apticron
# cp /usr/lib/apticron/apticron.conf /etc/apticron
# vim /etc/apticron/apticron.conf
And then add your email as below, found near the top of the file:
EMAIL=“you@yourdomain.com”
From now on, you’ll get an email whenever apticron finds updates that you haven’t yet installed. Below is the email that I got for one of my machines (my details hidden):
Subject: 2 Debian package update(s) for yourdomain.com
apticron report [Fri, 30 Apr 2021 17:42:05 +0100]
========================================================================
apticron has detected that some packages need upgrading on:
yourdomain.com
[ your server ip address ]
The following packages are currently pending an upgrade:
linux-image-4.19.0-16-cloud-amd64 4.19.181-1
linux-image-cloud-amd64 4.19+105+deb10u11
========================================================================
Package Details:
apt-listchanges: Reading changelogs...
apt-listchanges: Changelogs
---------------------------
--- Changes for linux-latest (linux-image-cloud-amd64) ---
linux-latest (105+deb10u11) buster; urgency=medium
* Update to 4.19.0-16
-- Salvatore Bonaccorso <carnil@debian.org> Fri, 19 Mar 2021 22:38:58 +0100
linux-latest (105+deb10u10) buster; urgency=medium
* Update to 4.19.0-15
-- Salvatore Bonaccorso <carnil@debian.org> Sat, 06 Mar 2021 08:37:46 +0100
linux-latest (105+deb10u9) buster-security; urgency=high
* Update to 4.19.0-14
-- Salvatore Bonaccorso <carnil@debian.org> Sat, 30 Jan 2021 08:43:43 +0100
linux-latest (105+deb10u8) buster; urgency=medium
* Update to 4.19.0-13
-- Salvatore Bonaccorso <carnil@debian.org> Fri, 27 Nov 2020 19:01:04 +0100
linux-latest (105+deb10u7) buster-security; urgency=high
* Update to 4.19.0-12
-- Salvatore Bonaccorso <carnil@debian.org> Sun, 18 Oct 2020 14:43:57 +0200
linux-latest (105+deb10u6) buster; urgency=medium
* Update to 4.19.0-11
-- Salvatore Bonaccorso <carnil@debian.org> Fri, 18 Sep 2020 20:48:30 +0200
linux-latest (105+deb10u5) buster; urgency=medium
* Update to 4.19.0-10
-- Salvatore Bonaccorso <carnil@debian.org> Thu, 09 Jul 2020 21:58:28 +0200
linux-latest (105+deb10u4) buster; urgency=medium
* Update to 4.19.0-9
-- Salvatore Bonaccorso <carnil@debian.org> Wed, 29 Apr 2020 16:16:38 +0200
linux-latest (105+deb10u3) buster; urgency=medium
* Update to 4.19.0-8
-- Salvatore Bonaccorso <carnil@debian.org> Fri, 31 Jan 2020 06:24:52 +0100
linux-latest (105+deb10u2) buster; urgency=medium
* Update to 4.19.0-7
-- Salvatore Bonaccorso <carnil@debian.org> Sun, 29 Dec 2019 22:39:49 +0100
linux-latest (105+deb10u1) buster; urgency=medium
* Update to 4.19.0-6
-- Ben Hutchings <ben@decadent.org.uk> Mon, 26 Aug 2019 02:16:02 +0100
========================================================================
You can perform the upgrade by issuing the command:
apt-get dist-upgrade
as root on yourdomain.com
--
apticronHow awesome is that!