13 KiB
Unattended-Upgrades Role for Ansible
Install and setup unattended-upgrades for Ubuntu and Debian, to periodically install security upgrades.
Notes
- If you have used version
0.0.1
of the role, you can delete the file/etc/apt/apt.conf.d/10periodic
as it is not needed anymore. You can use the following one-shot command:ansible -m file -a "state=absent path=/etc/apt/apt.conf.d/10periodic" <host-pattern>
- If you have used this role before version
2.0.0
, the files20auto-upgrades
and50unattended-upgrades
will differ from the system defaults (instead of configuration being placed in a separate file, as we do now). These can be left as-is as they will be overridden. During OS upgrades, when asked if these files should be overwritten by the maintainer's package, say yes. They will then be reset to their default states, and you won't be asked these questions again.
Requirements
The role uses apt module which has additional dependencies.
If you set unattended_mail
to an e-mail address, make sure mailx
command is available and your system is able to send e-mails.
The role requires unattended-upgrades version 0.70 and newer, which is available since Debian Wheezy and Ubuntu 12.04 respectively. This is due to Origins Patterns usage; if this is not available on your system, you may use the first version of the role.
Automatic Reboot
If you enable automatic reboot feature (unattended_automatic_reboot
), the role will attempt to install update-notifier-common
package, which is required on some systems for detecting and executing reboot after the upgrade. You may optionally define a specific time for rebooting (unattended_automatic_reboot_time
).
This feature was broken in Debian Jessie, but eventually was rolled into the unattended-upgrades package; see the discussion in #6 for more details.
Disabled Cron Jobs
On some hosts you may find that the unattended-upgrade's cron file /etc/cron.daily/apt
file has been renamed to apt.disabled
. This is possibly provider's decision, to save some CPU cycles. Use enable-standard-cronjobs role to re-enable unattended-upgrades. See also discussion in #9.
Role Variables
unattended_cache_valid_time
:- Default:
3600
- Description: Update the apt cache if it's older than the given time in seconds; passed to the apt module during package installation.
- Default:
unattended_origins_patterns
:- Default:
- Debian:
['origin=Debian,codename=${distro_codename},label=Debian-Security']
- Ubuntu:
['origin=Ubuntu,archive=${distro_codename}-security,label=Ubuntu']
- Debian:
- Description: Array of origins patterns to determine whether the package can be automatically installed, for more details see Origins Patterns below.
- Default:
unattended_package_blacklist
:- Default:
[]
- Description: Packages which won't be automatically upgraded.
- Default:
unattended_autofix_interrupted_dpkg
:- Default:
true
- Description: Whether on unclean dpkg exit to run
dpkg --force-confold --configure -a
.
- Default:
unattended_minimal_steps
:- Default:
true
- Description: Split the upgrade into the smallest possible chunks so that they can be interrupted with SIGUSR1.
- Default:
unattended_install_on_shutdown
:- Default:
false
- Description: Install all unattended-upgrades when the machine is shutting down.
- Default:
unattended_mail
:- Default:
false
(don't send any e-mail) - Description: E-mail address to send information about upgrades or problems with unattended upgrades.
- Default:
unattended_mail_only_on_error
:- Default:
false
- Description: Send e-mail only on errors, otherwise e-mail will be sent every time there's a package upgrade.
- Default:
unattended_mail_report
:- Default:
false
- Description: Choose on what event to send an email. Possible values are "always", "only-on-error" or "on-change".
- Default:
unattended_remove_unused_dependencies
:- Default:
false
- Description: Do automatic removal of all unused dependencies after the upgrade.
- Default:
unattended_remove_new_unused_dependencies
:- Default:
true
- Description: Do automatic removal of new unused dependencies after the upgrade.
- Default:
unattended_remove_unused_kernel_packages
:- Default:
false
- Description: Remove unused automatically installed kernel-related packages (kernel images, kernel headers and kernel version locked tools)
- Default:
unattended_automatic_reboot
:- Default:
false
- Description: Automatically reboot system if any upgraded package requires it, immediately after the upgrade.
- Default:
unattended_automatic_reboot_time
:- Default:
false
- Description: Automatically reboot system if any upgraded package requires it, at the specific time (HH:MM) instead of immediately after the upgrade.
- Default:
unattended_update_days
:- Default:
None
- Description: Set the days of the week that updates should be applied. The days can be specified as localized abbreviated or full names. Or as integers where "0" is Sunday, "1" is Monday etc. Example:
{"Mon";"Fri"};
- Default:
unattended_ignore_apps_require_restart
:- Default:
false
- Description: Unattended-upgrades won't automatically upgrade some critical packages requiring restart after an upgrade (i.e. there is
XB-Upgrade-Requires: app-restart
directive in their debian/control file). With this option set totrue
, unattended-upgrades will upgrade these packages regardless of the directive.
- Default:
unattended_syslog_enable
:- Default:
false
- Description: Write events to syslog, which is useful in environments where syslog messages are sent to a central store.
- Default:
unattended_syslog_facility
:- Default:
None
- Description: Write events to the specified syslog facility, or the daemon facility if not specified. Will only have affect if
unattended_syslog_enable
is set totrue
.
- Default:
unattended_verbose
:- Default:
0
(no report) - Description: Define verbosity level of APT for periodic runs. The output will be sent to root.
- Possible options:
0
: no report1
: progress report2
: + command outputs3
: + trace on
- Possible options:
- Default:
unattended_update_package_list
:- Default:
1
- Description: Do "apt-get update" automatically every n-days (0=disable).
- Default:
unattended_download_upgradeable
:- Default:
0
- Description: Do "apt-get upgrade --download-only" every n-days (0=disable).
- Default:
unattended_autoclean_interval
:- Default:
7
- Description: Do "apt-get autoclean" every n-days (0=disable).
- Default:
unattended_clean_interval
:- Default:
0
- Description: Do "apt-get clean" every n-days (0=disable).
- Default:
unattended_random_sleep
:- Default:
1800
(30 minutes) - Description: Define maximum for a random interval in seconds after which the apt job starts (only for systems without systemd).
- Default:
unattended_dpkg_options
:- Default:
[]
- Description: Array of dpkg command-line options used during unattended-upgrades runs, e.g.
["--force-confdef"]
,["--force-confold"]
.
- Default:
unattended_dl_limit
:- Default:
None
- Description: Limit the download speed in kb/sec using apt bandwidth limit feature.
- Default:
unattended_only_on_ac_power
:- Default:
false
- Description: Download and install upgrades only on AC power. It will also install the debian package
powermgmt-base
.
- Default:
Origins Patterns
Origins Pattern is a more powerful alternative to the Allowed Origins option used in previous versions of unattended-upgrade.
Pattern is composed of specific keywords:
a
,archive
,suite
– e.g.stable
,trusty-security
(archive=stable
)c
,component
– e.g.main
,crontrib
,non-free
(component=main
)l
,label
– e.g.Debian
,Debian-Security
,Ubuntu
o
,origin
– e.g.Debian
,Unofficial Multimedia Packages
,Ubuntu
n
,codename
– e.g.jessie
,jessie-updates
,trusty
(this is only supported withunattended-upgrades
>= 0.80)site
– e.g.http.debian.net
You can review the available repositories using apt-cache policy
and debug your choice using unattended-upgrades -d
command on a target system.
Additionally, unattended-upgrades support two macros (variables), derived from /etc/debian_version
:
${distro_id}
– Installed distribution name, e.g.Debian
orUbuntu
.${distro_codename}
– Installed codename, e.g.bullseye
orjammy
.
Using ${distro_codename}
should be preferred over using stable
or oldstable
as a selected, as once stable
moves to oldstable
, no security updates will be installed at all, or worse, package from a newer distro release will be installed by accident. The same goes for upgrading your installation from oldstable
to stable
, if you forget to change this in your origin patterns, you may not receive the security updates for your newer distro release. With ${distro_codename}
, both cases can never happen.
Role Usage Examples
Example for Ubuntu, with custom origins patterns, blacklisted packages and e-mail notification:
- hosts: all
roles:
- role: hifis.unattended_upgrades
unattended_origins_patterns:
- 'origin=Ubuntu,archive=${distro_codename}-security'
- 'o=Ubuntu,a=${distro_codename}-updates'
unattended_package_blacklist: [cowsay, vim]
unattended_mail: 'root@example.com'
Note: You don't need to specify unattended_origins_patterns
, the role will use distribution's default if the variable is not set.
Running Only on Debian-based Systems
If you manage multiple distribution with the same playbook, you may want to skip running this role on non-Debian systems. You can use when
conditional with role to limit the role to particular systems:
- hosts: all
roles:
- role: hifis.unattended_upgrades
when: ansible_facts['os_family'] == 'Debian'
See #38 for discussion.
Patterns Examples
By default, only security updates are allowed for both Ubuntu and Debian. You can add more patterns to allow unattended-updates install more packages automatically, however be aware that automated major updates may potentially break your system.
For Debian
unattended_origins_patterns:
- 'origin=Debian,codename=${distro_codename},label=Debian-Security' # security updates
- 'o=Debian,codename=${distro_codename},label=Debian' # updates including non-security updates
- 'o=Debian,codename=${distro_codename},a=proposed-updates'
For Ubuntu
In Ubuntu, archive always contains the distribution codename
unattended_origins_patterns:
- 'origin=Ubuntu,archive=${distro_codename}-security'
- 'o=Ubuntu,a=${distro_codename}'
- 'o=Ubuntu,a=${distro_codename}-updates'
- 'o=Ubuntu,a=${distro_codename}-proposed-updates'
For Raspbian
In Raspbian, it is only possible to update all packages from the default repository, including non-security updates, or updating none.
Updating all, including non-security:
unattended_origins_patterns:
- 'origin=Raspbian,codename=${distro_codename},label=Raspbian'
To not install any updates on a raspbian host, just set unattended_origins_patterns
to an empty list:
unattended_origins_patterns: []
License
GPL-2.0-or-later
Author
This role is maintained by HIFIS Software Services and was originally forked from jnv/ansible-role-unattended-upgrades, created by Jan Vlnas.
Contributors
We would like to thank and give credits to the following contributors of this project: