[SOLVED] Unattended Upgrades removal

Dai_trying · 2016-10-25 10:59

I have noticed that unattended upgrades are being run and packages installed without my consent! I do keep my system up to date, but I'm not happy for the system to act like Windows and make these decisions for me. I cannot remove unattended-upgrades package as it is required by system so how could I disable it please?
I have removed the apt script from cron.daily for now and will modify it to not perform UA, but this is going to be a PITA to remember for each re-install (I do quite a lot) so a simple way to disable/remove UA would be better (or disable it by default and allow users to choose to have enabled).

Last edited by Dai_trying (2019-06-12 12:17)

Rademes · 2016-10-25 12:03

Dai_trying wrote:

I do keep my system up to date, but I'm not happy for the system to act like Windows and make these decisions for me.

Totally agree. There should be easy way available to disable unattended upgrades. I do not like them too.

Dai_trying wrote:

(or disable it by default and allow users to choose to have enabled).

That would be the best solution!

Last edited by Rademes (2016-10-25 12:06)

Dai_trying · 2016-10-25 12:07

Today I noticed it upgraded my kernel and php for my server automatically, these are two of the many things that I should be aware of updates, but install them under supervision.

q4osteam · 2016-10-25 12:08

The correct and most easy way to disable unattended upgrades completely, is to create config file '/etc/apt/apt.conf.d/99ua-disable' with content:

APT::Periodic::Unattended-Upgrade "0";

We would like to make some gui tool integrated into the Control panel, but there are other priorities at the moment.

q4osteam · 2016-10-25 12:29

@Dai_trying
We would recommend you to directly include the config file above into your updater or make a configurable frontend to disable UA. Q4OS update manager automatically switches UA off exactly this way.

bin · 2016-10-25 13:29

Curiously I prefer unattended upgrades, although I fully understand reasons to dislike them.

The recent kernel update in response to Mad COW, or whatever it was called, just slotted in without me having to worry about it.

You can of course blacklist certain upgrades in 50unattended-upgrades - I block xserver-xorg out of habit. With that one exception I have never ever declined any upgrade to any package in a stable linux at any time since 1998.

Given that many people coming to Q4OS will not have experience of how linux behaves with upgrades I would have thought that disabling automatically would be a bad thing.

Perhaps a middle ground on installation would be to provide information that would allow users to make a choice under advisement?

Dai_trying · 2016-10-25 19:09

Tbh it is probably better to leave it as it is for new users, I am more than able to create a script to put my changes in place when I do a fresh install, I just don't like not knowing that something quite important (kernel upgrade) has happened to my system.
I had noticed the 50unattended-upgrades file and that is what I changed on my system, that way I can set my install script to know where it will always be.
I have had to change the cron.daily/apt script already to disable the random delay and remove the battery checks as this was causing me issues. This laptop is only on power about 10-20% of the time (max) so I need everything to run in battery mode and changing the anacron setting only affected anacron and not the individual scripts in cron.
But I have it all set now, and have put another script on my todo list.

@q4os team
Thanks for the info, I could code a gui in python & qt4/5 to do this (and other settings), but I don't think it could be easily integrated with the control panel, if you think it could work though let me know and I will start something, and I will add a check to my updater script.

bin · 2016-10-26 06:00

Out of curiosity - or more because I'm looking to update my 10 year old HP - what machine do you run Dai?

I assume you're pleased with it???

Dai_trying · 2016-10-26 09:42

I bought the Dell Inspiron 15 3000 Series and I am very pleased with it. I might have gone for a higher spec if budget were not so tight, but it is more than adequate for my needs. I would definately recommend Dell to anyone as they seem to work well, my old Inspiron (1545) which I got free with a phone contract about 8-9 years ago has worked really well, but was limited by being single core 32 bit system. I have now repurposed it to being a full time pvr connected to the main tv (using Mythbuntu) and it uses much less power than the Dell optiplex (tower) that it replaced while still running and recording without issue (except the issue with ubuntu itself, I don't really like them ).

Last edited by Dai_trying (2016-10-27 17:04)

Rademes · 2016-10-27 16:36

Dai, do you have these specifications?
Dell Inspiron 15 3000 (3558) Black, 15.6" HD (1366x768) LED Glare, Intel Core i3-5005U (2.0GHz/3MB), Intel HD Graphics 5 (272665561).
http://datalux.lv/en/notebooks/dell-ins … 65561.html
Maybe I will buy it too if it works very well with Q4OS Orion installed.

Last edited by Rademes (2016-10-27 16:37)

Dai_trying · 2016-10-27 17:03

@ Rademes
Not quite, I have the
Dell Inspiron 15 3000 (3552) Black
15.6-inch HD (1366 x 768) Truelife LED-Backlit Display
Intel® Pentium® Processor N3710 (2M Cache, up to 2.56 GHz)
Intel® HD Graphics

But I would imagine the one you specified will run equally well (actually better) with Q4OS. You would need to install the newer kernel though as the stable one does not recognize the newer hardware. You can read my issues with the graphics mentioned in this post, it was mainly an issue with vlc but it was caused by not having the correct drivers installed because of video hardware not being recognized by the kernel (I think).
But I do like it and it is working very nicely for me, and because of that I would highly recommend Dell.

q4osteam · 2016-10-28 14:15

Dai_trying wrote:

I could code a gui in python & qt4/5 to do this (and other settings) ...

Thanks for the proposal, we would let you know, as we think the design through. In any case, it has to be coded in C++ to be applicable in the pure Q4OS installation/profile.

Dai_trying · 2016-10-28 18:59

No worries guys, I figured it would be something like that, but I thought I'd offer anyway

Dai_trying · 2019-06-10 21:18

Just wanted to update this post as I had forgotten about the requirement of unattended upgrades and recently after running apt update and attempting to upgrade was told apt was locked as being used by another process, I grep'd ps and found it was unattended upgrades again and tried removing it but as in my original post it is still a requirement of Q4OS, I cannot see a reason for this as it is an extra package that in no way (that I can see) will affect the running of the system. Is it possible to remove it from the dependency list?

Just to note I do have it disabled now but I still want to remove it.

sickpig · 2019-06-11 04:50

did u disable/mask the related .service? assuming u using systemd

hitsware · 2019-06-11 06:04

Geez ..... I never dreamed of such with Q4OS.
Reminds me of Ubuntu (and my I first Linux disappointment)

sickpig · 2019-06-11 06:25

ubuntu is infected with malignancy of gnome, Q4OS by default is not and is quite blazing fast. TDE needs to be more stable though.

q4osteam · 2019-06-11 07:27

Dai_trying wrote:

Just to note I do have it disabled now but I still want to remove it.

Yes, this is a long standing task, but with lower priority. We need unattended-upgrades in the basic Q4OS configuration for users who don't want to care about upgrades and at the same time expect the system secured and updated. Anyway, it's easily possible to turn unattended-upgrades off manually, it becomes inactive and doesn't touch the system in any way. Also, if you install update-manager, or the desktop profile, unattended-upgrade is automatically switched off, so disabled completely.

We could suggest to move unattended-upgrades from the hard dependency to recommends to enable a complete removal.

Dai_trying · 2019-06-11 08:27

q4osteam wrote:

We could suggest to move unattended-upgrades from the hard dependency to recommends to enable a complete removal.

Yes I think that would solve my issue and still give you the required packages for "normal" users , Thank you.

sickpig wrote:

did u disable/mask the related .service? assuming u using systemd

No, it is easier just to disable upgrades through the config file (/etc/apt/apt.conf.d/20auto-upgrades).

q4osteam · 2019-06-11 08:29

q4osteam wrote:

We could suggest to move unattended-upgrades from the hard dependency to recommends to enable a complete removal.

Well, it will be discussed internally and possibly changed in the next Centaurus release.

sickpig · 2019-06-11 10:30

Dai_trying wrote:

No, it is easier just to disable upgrades through the config file (/etc/apt/apt.conf.d/20auto-upgrades).

yup true
i see 50unattended-upgrades and there is a blacklist section supporting regex. wonder if adding kernel and php to it will prevent their upgrade? could be useful in your use case. i havent tried it as am till now touch wood not bothered by unattended upgrades.

Dai_trying · 2019-06-11 10:40

I am not trying to prevent just the packages mentioned from being auto-upgraded but all of them really, I only mentioned those as they are quite critical to the system I was working on at that time, I would really just prefer to remove unattended upgrades so I do not have to worry about what my system contains as I will know (before it is installed) what versions are there, but thanks for the suggestion

sickpig · 2019-06-11 11:48

yup got it
i had removed it few months ago without breaking anything. At least i couldn't notice anything not working.
but installed it again couple months back for its convenience. But changed the unattend upgrade timer to run a few minutes after the boot as i had noticed the unattend upgrade service was adding a few unnecessary seconds to the boot time

hitsware · 2019-06-11 13:31

No problems if not attached to WWW, right ?
(my main use (now) for Q4OS is isolated installed on USB stick.
How about the RPi version ? 'Updated' also ?

Dai_trying · 2019-06-11 15:54

@ hitsware:
If you are not connected to the internet then no upgrades can be applied, but when you do connect and update the apt repositories if you have it configured to auto-update then it will. Not sure about the Pi version but will check later and find out.

Incidentally I noticed when updating today that unattended-upgrades was updated from the Debian repository and it wanted to overwrite /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/20auto-upgrades and the new version is set to not update and not upgrade, so it seems like this will affect users auto-upgrading as I would expect it would automatically apply this and therefore stop the automatic updates... or maybe it will not apply this if the upgrade is done automatically, not really sure but might be worth investigating.

Note: I'm using Centaurus and do not know if this is the same behavior with Scorpion.

Q4OS Forum

#1 2016-10-25 10:59

[SOLVED] Unattended Upgrades removal

#2 2016-10-25 12:03

Re: [SOLVED] Unattended Upgrades removal

#3 2016-10-25 12:07

Re: [SOLVED] Unattended Upgrades removal

#4 2016-10-25 12:08

Re: [SOLVED] Unattended Upgrades removal

#5 2016-10-25 12:29

Re: [SOLVED] Unattended Upgrades removal

#6 2016-10-25 13:29

Re: [SOLVED] Unattended Upgrades removal

#7 2016-10-25 19:09

Re: [SOLVED] Unattended Upgrades removal

#8 2016-10-26 06:00

Re: [SOLVED] Unattended Upgrades removal

#9 2016-10-26 09:42

Re: [SOLVED] Unattended Upgrades removal

#10 2016-10-27 16:36

Re: [SOLVED] Unattended Upgrades removal

#11 2016-10-27 17:03

Re: [SOLVED] Unattended Upgrades removal

#12 2016-10-28 14:15

Re: [SOLVED] Unattended Upgrades removal

#13 2016-10-28 18:59

Re: [SOLVED] Unattended Upgrades removal

#14 2019-06-10 21:18

Re: [SOLVED] Unattended Upgrades removal

#15 2019-06-11 04:50

Re: [SOLVED] Unattended Upgrades removal

#16 2019-06-11 06:04

Re: [SOLVED] Unattended Upgrades removal

#17 2019-06-11 06:25

Re: [SOLVED] Unattended Upgrades removal

#18 2019-06-11 07:27

Re: [SOLVED] Unattended Upgrades removal

#19 2019-06-11 08:27

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#20 2019-06-11 08:29

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#21 2019-06-11 10:30

Re: [SOLVED] Unattended Upgrades removal

#22 2019-06-11 10:40

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#23 2019-06-11 11:48

Re: [SOLVED] Unattended Upgrades removal

#24 2019-06-11 13:31

Re: [SOLVED] Unattended Upgrades removal

#25 2019-06-11 15:54

Re: [SOLVED] Unattended Upgrades removal

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