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Does freebsd have the debian equivalent of unattended-upgrades? I want to setup auto security updates and forget about it.

cperciva 2y ago
It's not recommended, but you can run freebsd-update and pkg upgrade non-interactively.
j16sdiz 2y ago
This is not recommended. The recommended way is to set the weekly_status_pkg_enable flag and check email often. https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?periodic.conf https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?periodic.conf
- DA87E80D629 2y ago
  That's one nice thing about debian. For home servers I can setup auto updates once and forget about it till the next debian version is released. It will auto install security updates, reboot if necessary.
  - sulandor 2y ago
    it's a tradeoff between fear that an update will break it and fear that a adversary will break it. highly depends on the circumstances if/when auto-updates make sense, but once you have seen uptime in the decades range, most don't want to go back to ephemeral systems.
    - karmarepellent 2y ago
      I have never seen a Debian system break due to auto-updates when they only subscribe to the common main, contrib and even non-free Debian repositories. They are incredibly stable and robust. However one might want to use apt preferences/version pinning if they also use external non-debian repositories to e.g. install a newer version of PHP. Since some repositories keep different major versions in the same repository, an auto-update might otherwise install a version that causes an application to break. That being said, most systems can probably get away with auto-updates and a little apt preference configuration and call it a day.
    - DA87E80D629 2y ago
      I never had a debian installation break from automated security updates.
    - DA87E80D629 2y ago
      You should never have auto updates on a production server but for home servers and desktops they are vital.
      - sulandor 2y ago
        somewhere the line got blurry
- spookie 2y ago
  Mails are the correct way to do it. These kind of stops are what make *BSDs/Linux less prone to widespread attack vectors given how heterogeneous their populations are. Yes, I'm assuming any kind of updates, security related or not, might be unsecure given less eyes looked at them due to their freshness.

cperciva 2y ago

It's not recommended, but you can run freebsd-update and pkg upgrade non-interactively.

j16sdiz 2y ago

This is not recommended. The recommended way is to set the weekly_status_pkg_enable flag and check email often. https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?periodic.conf https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?periodic.conf

DA87E80D629 2y ago
That's one nice thing about debian. For home servers I can setup auto updates once and forget about it till the next debian version is released. It will auto install security updates, reboot if necessary.
- sulandor 2y ago
  it's a tradeoff between fear that an update will break it and fear that a adversary will break it. highly depends on the circumstances if/when auto-updates make sense, but once you have seen uptime in the decades range, most don't want to go back to ephemeral systems.
  - karmarepellent 2y ago
    I have never seen a Debian system break due to auto-updates when they only subscribe to the common main, contrib and even non-free Debian repositories. They are incredibly stable and robust. However one might want to use apt preferences/version pinning if they also use external non-debian repositories to e.g. install a newer version of PHP. Since some repositories keep different major versions in the same repository, an auto-update might otherwise install a version that causes an application to break. That being said, most systems can probably get away with auto-updates and a little apt preference configuration and call it a day.
  - DA87E80D629 2y ago
    I never had a debian installation break from automated security updates.
  - DA87E80D629 2y ago
    You should never have auto updates on a production server but for home servers and desktops they are vital.
    - sulandor 2y ago
      somewhere the line got blurry
spookie 2y ago
Mails are the correct way to do it. These kind of stops are what make *BSDs/Linux less prone to widespread attack vectors given how heterogeneous their populations are. Yes, I'm assuming any kind of updates, security related or not, might be unsecure given less eyes looked at them due to their freshness.