Or asked the other way around: How long do you keep your servers running without installing any software updates?

update means something like

sudo dnf update

or something ....

apt-get upgrade
apt-get update

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[–] 52 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Those apt commands are in a less-good order. It's usually better to update apt, then upgrade the system.

I upgrade as soon as reasonably possible after the notification appears, if the system isn't on auto-upgrade.

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  • [–] 22 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Unattended-upgrade does security-only patching once every 4 hours (in rough sync with my local mirror)

    Full upgrades are done weekly, accompanied by a reboot

    I find that the split between security patching and feature/bug patching maintains a healthy balance knowing when something is likely to break but never being behind on the latest cve.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago

    For me, unattended-upgrade does it's thing. Updating other packages happens whenever I think about it. Very few things are not containerized and there's very little added beyond the base Debian install, so when I do update its maybe a dozen packages.

    I would previously reboot during thunderstorms if we lost power, but now that I've got a UPS I probably ought to come up with a different plan.

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  • [–] 40 points 1 year ago (6 children)

    Every night at ~ 12-1am

    unattended updates / transactional-update are awesome.

    Stuff has been running for years, and it's still up to date.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago

    Once per week for me. Works really great on openSUSE MicroOS. Had to roll back maybe a couple of times the last few years.

    That said, I run basically everything in containers so the OS installed things are lean.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

    I wish I could use unattended-upgrade.

    It literally restarts my server even when I disable the option, leaving it hung if the USB boot key isn't in there.

    I had to stop using it, so now I just manually upgrade because that doesn't auto-restart without my permission...

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago*

    unattended-upgrades doesn't do that unless you explicitly specify Unattended-Upgrade::Automatic-Reboot "true"; in the config. Check /usr/share/doc/unattended-upgrades/README.md.gz

    The main configuration file is /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/50unattended-upgrades, maybe you put your config in the wrong place?

    here is mine

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  • [–] 18 points 1 year ago* (11 children)

    Well, one of the reasons I'm using debian on my server is so I can kinda forget about it...

    I'll update maybe once a month, or every couple months. I don't always restart though, so my kernel is probably a bit behind :'D

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  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago (7 children)

    That's... Not how it works.. Debian is "stable" not "secure". You use Debian so that is easier to run updates frequently since they'll be unlikely to break things.

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  • [–] 0 points 1 year ago (6 children)

    If I wanted to run updates frequently I would run arch lmao. Even if I did apt update every day, debian stable doesn't get that many updates.

    I could just run auto-update but meh.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    If I wanted to run updates frequently I would run arch lmao. Even if I did apt update every day, debian stable doesn’t get that many updates.

    You're not updating for features you're updating for bug and security fixes. That's why Debian stable doesn't have many updates. But the ones they do are typically important.

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  • [–] -2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Yeah, I know. Until I get ransomware'd and my nudes leaked, I won't care 💅🏻✨

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  • [–] [S] 4 points 1 year ago*

    lol. Same issue for me. I run it for months, and surprisingly (for me) nothing breaks at all.

    But fucking ssh shows warnings regarding some "post quantum crypto" stuff; recommending software update, that was not there before lol.

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  • [–] 12 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    When I remember. About once a month.

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  • [–] 11 points 1 year ago

    Whenever I ssh into it.

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  • [–] 7 points 1 year ago

    Once a week. I have a bash script that does an apt update upgrade and pulls new docker images.

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  • [–] 6 points 1 year ago

    Monthly unless I learn about a vulnerability that would require it sooner.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago

    On Windows, almost never since it was a disruptive shitshow. Now that I've got everything running Linux it's weekly. Often sooner if I happen to be remoting in and manually update.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago

    maybe like once in 3 months. i usually update when i need to setup something new on the server that needs to install new packages.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago*

    Gentooer here. Emerge sync &; world daily at night.

    Weekly a manual check for stuff that doesn't autoupdate for reasons.

    Monthly / biweekly podman compose pull for containers. Manual, because i don't trust that kind of autoupdate.

    Edit: opnSense updates are manual only when I remember because if it breaks, I must be at home to fix it or i lose remote access and that's bad.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago

    Only mostly when I want to. Which tends to be on Mondays and Saturdays.

    I'm running Sid on servers, so automatic updates are actually a risk. Used to be Debian Stable, but maaan the docker and podman improvements.... make me drool.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago

    Weekly. Cronjob.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Every day or at least once a week. Should automate it.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago

    I do it every 3 to 5 days. I usually do it when I have time to fix things if it goes south.

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  • I SSH in and run an update manually, once a week.

    I'm not knowledgable and comfortable enough to let updates happen automatically and feel like I could trust it to keep running. Not yet, anyway.

    Edit: But at some point I might do what another commenter said and make sure security updates run automatically and check other updates weekly.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago

    Using nix :P

    I update the flake every now and then via nix flake updated and then do a rebuild

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago

    Probably every 2 months. When I have a day off work with nothing to do. I have a few VMs that are more fragile than I want to admit and if something breaks I want to have time to tinker instead of just restoring a backup.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago*

    everyday to once a month, depending how often I use the server

    IME usually waiting longer to apply larger updates causes more issues than smaller and more frequent ones

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago

    Automatic daily updates for system packages. Automatic daily container updates with watchtower. I normally have things pinned to a reasonable major or minor release, so I do manual upgrades for new OS release branches and usually pin to a major version for Docker containers but depends on the container.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago

    Apt update and upgrade happen automatically.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago

    Automatic upgrades handle the security patches. Everything else maybe once a month. My big services like Nextcloud auto update as well.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago

    Daily on my Gentoo server, through a Cronjob every morning. It's a custom script though, so there's more than just doing an emerge update. It'll send me ntfy notifications for the update results, if there are new news items, and if there are any time config merge updates to make. A few other things as well but that's the main stuff.

    Other servers, typically weekly or only manually when I ssh into them (for the ones I don't really feel the need to update frequently).

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago

    On my ubuntu I use unattended updates but that doesn't work reliably. I have to update it manually most of the time. Once every other month.

    On my fedora server it auto updates every day at 4 reliably.

    The next server is going to be atomic such that the server restart is even shorter (not that I would care about it at 4).

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago

    All services are dockerized, updated nightly.

    Server OS runs a kernel-patch service for real time exploit patching.

    All other updates as soon as they appear.

    Yeah, sometimes I'll need to go in a repair - but that's way better than having to clean up after having been exploited due to not keeping up on security patches.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago

    Almost everything I have runs Debian or NixOS, so…….. once a month? Except for VMs I’m playing around with, which usually get updated every time I log into them, or instal stuff.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago

    my nixos containers and the podman containers inside them update nightly around 03:00

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago

    Mine is set to update all the stuff I use, and the OS, automatically whenever an update is available. 🤷‍♂️

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago

    All systems, daily via a single ansible script. That's apt update, upgrade and reboot if needed (some systems set to only reboot with a separate script so I can handle them separately).

    Rarely have any sort of problems.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    When something doesn't work. I.e. when an app update causes incompatibility with a service. I think I have one server that's a few years without an update (distro version may actually be EOL for all I know).

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

    Why probably so may unpatched issues.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago

    Ain't broke and I can't be bothered to update. Not accessible publicly either. It also runs some software with very specific and brittle dependencies and I don't care to risk breaking it. If distro is EOL (probably is) then it'd be a pretty time consuming getting everything set up again.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago

    Every couple of days. I don't auto-update, but I've streamlined the process to the point that I can just open a single web page and see the number of pending updates for every system on my network, docker containers included, each one with a button. Clicking the button applies the update and reboots if necessary. So it takes about 15 seconds of effort to update everything, which is why I don't mind doing it so often.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago

    podman quadlets with auto updates running on opensuse microos

    im not yet self hosting a ton of services tho

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    On Alpine Linux I update my two Pi servers at 2 in the morning daily. It's simpler compared to Debian which needs unattended-updates. Just add apk update && apk upgrade to a cron job and you're good to go.

    I only have three docker services which is simple enough to update manually.

    I like to keep things as simple as possible for my already chaotic brain.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Be careful with unattended upgrades, even on alpine. A recent breaking change in python3 broke my alpine 23 ansible instance. Thankfully I have backups, but if you're going to automate the upgrade, you should automate tests as well.

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  • My web facing server has just enough packages installed to (kinda securely) host a Caddy and Kiwix docker container to work with my domain name and make a comfortable work environment through SSH. My Pi for my HomeAssistant docker container has less because it's locked down to just my local network.

    I also wrote my own install scripts so reinstalling everything and getting it back to a running state would take about 15 minutes for each device.

    And I also wrote my own backup/restore scripts that evolved over 3/4 of a year. I use them often so I have confidence in those scripts.

    I personally don't really care too much. I have multiple ways of dealing with issues for something that's a hobby to me. Which is why I stick to simplicity.

    I'm sure this is a thing for people to worry about when dealing with more complex setups. I just wanna vibe out in my tiny corner of the internet.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    To make it even simpler, apk -U upgrade

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  • apk seems to have some tricks in there that aren't as well known.

    I managed to catch in the IRC channel that apk add doc will automatically download any related man pages for packages with any future downloads through apk. That made life a bit more convenient instead of downloading all those packages separately.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago

    If I have something serious, I will set up automatic upgrades. If short downtimes are ok, also with automatic reboots when the kernel updates, but if they are not, with notifications that I should go reboot them.

    If it's not anything serious, whenever I remember to.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

    Got apticron set up on my servers or similar solutions to get notified when updates are available. Then usually, from time of notification +1 or 2 days.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago

    Depends, on how critical something is...since we deal with servers / customers at work that often are purposely not adjusted for years...because introducing a different behaviour (even if better) would grind production to a halt, I take a not careful approach.

    I was using OpenSUSE Leap, and with zypper you can review which patches are available, whether they are critical or run recommended or not needed. You can then apply which specific patch you want be CVE if necessary.

    But with Leap's path seaming messy at the moment, I moved to Tumbleweed, since you have snapshotying built in. If an update did mess something up you just rollback to the previous snapshot and in less than a minute it is fixed

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago

    First Friday of the month. Easy to remember.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago

    Anything exposed to the internet gets a daily / weekly update, depending on how exposed it is, how stable the updates are and how critical a breach would be. For example nginx would be a daily update.

    Anything behind a vpn gets a more random update schedule mostly based on when I feel like it (probably around once a month or every other month)

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago

    Usely every 3/4 months roughly. I try to remeber to update. The base. Server. And docker based things! /webserices. I update. Sparingly. Every few new versions. As I am the only user of my server. I don't have a high need to update. So I update only if a new future. Is added or a mayor bug /security patch.

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  • [–] 0 points 1 year ago

    Yum-cron. Daily. Rolling bounce on a schedule.

    It has been rock-solid for 20 years, but lennart's cancer and the growing amount of shite they're shoveling into EL has caused a few issues here and there with 7, 9 and 10. (Skipped 8 because f that)

    But, today, it works. So that's year 23 and 8 months.

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