15

I am setting up an ubuntu server and want to know what I should be doing on it regularly.

apt-get update/upgrade seems obvious.

Is there a glsa check for example? Anything else I should be running? I guess it depends on what is installed, but I am thinking of the core system for now.

Skyhawk
  • 14,200
  • 4
  • 53
  • 95
Chris Kimpton
  • 723
  • 9
  • 18

5 Answers5

17

Upgrading packages as you mentioned is the most important thing. A couple of tools that can make that easier:

  • cron-apt, to notify you by email when there are upgrades to install; and
  • unattended-upgrades, to automatically apply non-interactive upgrades

Ubuntu also has a security announcement list, but in my experience it is really just a duplicate of the package upgrades that cron-apt will notify you about. On the other hand it will provide a bit more information on what is being fixed (or what is vulnerable) in each security upgrade.

T Percival
  • 286
  • 2
  • 4
2

I installed munin on my servers so that I can monitor all sorts of things about them, including whether apt thinks there are packages to install.

Paul Tomblin
  • 5,225
  • 1
  • 28
  • 39
1

If you want to just do the updates create a text file with:

apt-get -yq update
apt-get -yq upgrade

and add it to crontab for whatever timeline you want.

Unkwntech
  • 1,760
  • 4
  • 19
  • 24
0
apt-get moo

try it :)

Martin OConnor
  • 131
  • 1
  • 3
-3

I put the following line in /etc/crontab

2 */2 * * * root    apt-get -qq update && apt-get -qq -y --force-yes upgrade && apt-get -qq clean

Beware that it does not install new packages, therefore it might miss some kernel updates: you still have to run synaptic/aptitude once in a while.

Gianluca Della Vedova
  • 99
  • 2