debian-scripts

Utilities to keep Debian, Ubuntu, and other apt-based systems patched, tidy, and rebooted only when needed.

Autoupdate Workflow

• autoupdate-and-reboot.sh orchestrates apt-get update, apt-get dist-upgrade, optional needrestart, and apt-get autoremove --purge in that order.
• The script runs in strict Bash mode, guards against concurrent execution with flock, logs to /var/log/autoupdate.log and syslog, and refuses to reboot on partial failure.
• Reboots occur only when /var/run/reboot-required exists (or REBOOT_FORCE=1) and are skipped automatically for containers, active TTY sessions, or when NO_REBOOT=1.

Installation

make install

or

sudo ./install-autoupdate.sh

Both options copy the script to /usr/local/sbin/, install autoupdate.service and autoupdate.timer, reload systemd units, enable the timer, and disable the conflicting apt-daily-upgrade.timer.

To remove everything:

make uninstall

Runtime Behaviour

• autoupdate.timer schedules a run every three hours with a 30-minute randomized delay and persists missed runs across reboots.
• Each run emits a final status line (status uname=… pending=… reboot_required=…) for monitoring, and the script exits without rebooting if anything fails.
• Adjustable knobs:
  • NO_REBOOT=1 prevents reboots entirely.
  • REBOOT_FORCE=1 forces a reboot even if /var/run/reboot-required is absent (still skips for containers/TTYs).

Development

• Lint scripts: make lint (requires shellcheck and shfmt).
• Run automated tests: make test (requires bats).
• Continuous integration via GitHub Actions runs both linting and tests on every push and pull request.