Noninteractive System Upgrades

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21

I installed with opi in a root shell as follows:

erlangen:~ # opi btrbk
Searching repos for: btrbk
1. btrbk
Pick a number (0 to quit): 1
You have selected package name: btrbk
1. Branch project for package btrbk (openS + | 0.32.6                    | noarch
2. filesystems ?                             | 0.31.2                    | noarch
3. home:Kirov !                              | 0.32.6                    | noarch
4. home:iDesmI !                             | 0.32.6                    | noarch
5. home:rroden12 !                           | 0.32.5                    | noarch
6. home:Aikhjarto !                          | 0.31.2                    | noarch
7. home:crakkhat !                           | 0.31.2                    | noarch
Pick a number (0 to quit): 1
You have selected package: Branch project for package btrbk (openS + | 0.32.6 | noarch
Installing from existing repo 'Branch project for package btrbk (openSUSE_Tumbleweed)'
Loading repository data...
Reading installed packages...
'btrbk.noarch' is already installed.
No update candidate for 'btrbk-0.32.6-5.28.noarch'. The highest available version is already installed.
Resolving package dependencies...
Nothing to do.
erlangen:~ #

Lowered priority:

erlangen:~ # zypper repos home_eyecreate_branches_filesystems
Alias          : home_eyecreate_branches_filesystems
Name           : Branch project for package btrbk (openSUSE_Tumbleweed)
URI            : https://cdn.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/eyecreate:/branches:/filesystems/openSUSE_Tumbleweed/
Enabled        : Yes
GPG Check      : (r ) Yes
Priority       : 100 (lowered priority)
Autorefresh    : On
Keep Packages  : Off
Type           : rpm-md
GPG Key URI    : https://cdn.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/eyecreate:/branches:/filesystems/openSUSE_Tumbleweed/repodata/repomd.xml.key
Path Prefix    : 
Parent Service : 
Keywords       : ---
Repo Info Path : /etc/zypp/repos.d/home_eyecreate_branches_filesystems.repo
MD Cache Path  : /var/cache/zypp/raw/home_eyecreate_branches_filesystems
erlangen:~ #
22

Iā€™ve ran TW on a webserver for over a year with unattended updates with zypper, no extra repos and default priorities. I havenā€™t witnessed any updates fail on TW and havenā€™t figured out how to set-up notifications yet, but my usual checking was a quick htop to see if the uptime was more than 24 hours :stuck_out_tongue:

sudo -e '/etc/systemd/system/suse-up.service'

[Service]
Type=oneshot
ExecStartPre='/usr/bin/zypper' clean --all
ExecStart='/usr/bin/zypper' --non-interactive refresh --force --services
ExecStart='/usr/bin/zypper' --non-interactive dist-upgrade --auto-agree-with-licenses --allow-downgrade --allow-name-change --allow-arch-change --allow-vendor-change
ExecStartPost='/usr/bin/sync'
ExecStartPost='/usr/bin/systemctl' reboot

sudo -e '/etc/systemd/system/suse-up.timer' && sudo systemctl daemon-reload && sudo systemctl enable 'suse-up.timer' --now

[Unit]
Description=Software Package Maintenance and Updater
After=network-online.target
Wants=network-online.target

[Timer]
OnCalendar=*-*-* 06:00:00
Persistent=true

[Install]
WantedBy=timers.target

solver.cleandepsOnRemove = true is pretty cool! Iā€™m used to deps being removed on Fedora and Ubuntu

OnFailure=failure-notification@%n I wonder if that would notify upon logging in through SSH?

23

Yeah. Tumbleweed folks finally got it. Even upgrading to KDE Plasma 6 worked like a charm, e.g. Tumbleweed Noninteractive Distribution Upgrade 20221227-0 -> 20240329-0

I wonder if that would notify upon logging in through SSH?

Machines I am maintaining and monitoring got a mail server installed using yast2 mail:

Notifications are implemented by a systemd service: systemd - ArchWiki.

Infamous host erlangen is my main desktop machine and sends local mail:

erlangen:~ # cat /usr/local/bin/failure-notification.sh 
#!/bin/bash 
mail -Ssendwait -s "Service $1 failed" </dev/null root
erlangen:~ #

Remote machines report to my mail address. fetchmail polls with a one minute interval:

burgberg Service dup failed
ļæ¼
From:	roland.somebody@gmx.de
To:	Me
Date:	16.03.24 08:39

They above error was triggered by purge-kernels.service already running. Thus I modified dup.service accordingly:

root@freiburg: ~
# systemctl cat dup
# /etc/systemd/system/dup.service
[Unit]
Description=dist upgrade
After=purge-kernels.service btrbk.service

[Service]
ExecStartPre=/usr/local/bin/check-opensuse.sh
ExecStart=/usr/bin/zypper --non-interactive dist-upgrade --auto-agree-with-licenses

# /etc/systemd/system/service.d/toplevel-override.conf
[Unit]
OnFailure=failure-notification@%n

Both services have low resource consumption:

erlangen:~ # systemd-cgtop --cpu=time system.slice/postfix.service|cat
system.slice/postfix.service       3 721.623ms        -        -        -
erlangen:~ # 

erlangen:~ # systemd-cgtop --cpu=time system.slice/fetchmail.service|cat
system.slice/fetchmail.service       1 26.320678s        -        -        -
erlangen:~ #
1 Like
24

Recent zypper upgrades caused some hassle. Daily noninteractive system upgrades using parallel downloads from cdn.opensuse.org were unaffected and entirely hassle free:

dist-upgrade:

erlangen:~ # journalctl --since 2025-05-20 -u dup -g Consumed
May 20 05:00:13 erlangen systemd[1]: dup.service: Consumed 4.656s CPU time.
May 21 00:00:37 erlangen systemd[1]: dup.service: Consumed 8.318s CPU time.
-- Boot 79506083c75b4e2da90b003b163608cf --
May 22 05:27:10 erlangen systemd[1]: dup.service: Consumed 4.464s CPU time.
May 23 03:35:44 erlangen systemd[1]: dup.service: Consumed 6.619s CPU time.
May 24 00:01:20 erlangen systemd[1]: dup.service: Consumed 29.648s CPU time.
May 25 05:27:15 erlangen systemd[1]: dup.service: Consumed 17.717s CPU time.
May 26 05:04:20 erlangen systemd[1]: dup.service: Consumed 4.531s CPU time.
May 27 04:07:42 erlangen systemd[1]: dup.service: Consumed 4.419s CPU time.
May 28 00:00:32 erlangen systemd[1]: dup.service: Consumed 6.331s CPU time.
May 29 05:16:46 erlangen systemd[1]: dup.service: Consumed 9.997s CPU time.
-- Boot 788a04ae3e004ce3998857d13147a407 --
May 29 15:07:03 erlangen systemd[1]: dup.service: Consumed 7.529s CPU time.
May 30 05:45:31 erlangen systemd[1]: dup.service: Consumed 16.685s CPU time.
May 31 05:00:42 erlangen systemd[1]: dup.service: Consumed 6.715s CPU time.
Jun 01 05:34:00 erlangen systemd[1]: dup.service: Consumed 19.623s CPU time.
Jun 02 00:08:13 erlangen systemd[1]: dup.service: Consumed 3min 3.007s CPU time.
-- Boot 443980681d194840a569960589900abb --
Jun 03 00:00:56 erlangen systemd[1]: dup.service: Consumed 16.492s CPU time.
erlangen:~ #

transactional-update:

root: ~
# journalctl --since 2025-05-20 -u transactional-update.service -g Consumed --no-hostname 
May 20 00:00:33 systemd[1]: transactional-update.service: Consumed 9.847s CPU time.
-- Boot fefb06ca8122406a848ea3c35ef30a79 --
May 21 00:00:37 systemd[1]: transactional-update.service: Consumed 10.289s CPU time.
-- Boot 087e9e10272a40c5a162e2c838003a87 --
May 22 00:00:23 systemd[1]: transactional-update.service: Consumed 3.247s CPU time.
May 23 00:01:35 systemd[1]: transactional-update.service: Consumed 3.695s CPU time.
May 24 00:02:18 systemd[1]: transactional-update.service: Consumed 35.461s CPU time.
-- Boot 0b91b5b0b11d437ab41ae32de1cbe5de --
May 25 00:00:44 systemd[1]: transactional-update.service: Consumed 11.719s CPU time.
-- Boot e342b6ba0de04b35a5f6f4e3c1bd91a8 --
May 26 00:00:24 systemd[1]: transactional-update.service: Consumed 3.242s CPU time.
May 27 00:00:19 systemd[1]: transactional-update.service: Consumed 3.017s CPU time.
May 28 00:00:59 systemd[1]: transactional-update.service: Consumed 3.307s CPU time.
May 29 00:00:35 systemd[1]: transactional-update.service: Consumed 13.129s CPU time.
-- Boot 18a53766aece40deaa8dbfbd8d07d528 --
May 30 00:00:34 systemd[1]: transactional-update.service: Consumed 10.976s CPU time.
-- Boot 541f8140dd7f47e2947709e21bb84b2d --
May 31 00:01:31 systemd[1]: transactional-update.service: Consumed 9.358s CPU time.
-- Boot b4360a7945b140b280f846a27d087b78 --
Jun 01 00:11:00 systemd[1]: transactional-update.service: Consumed 13.442s CPU time.
-- Boot 8f0bdcace77448ff8faa7e3900655ccd --
Jun 02 00:10:59 systemd[1]: transactional-update.service: Consumed 2min 43.170s CPU time.
-- Boot 2e086e7185b349c6b92a1479de48dac5 --
Jun 03 00:01:37 systemd[1]: transactional-update.service: Consumed 42.060s CPU time.

root: ~
#
25

With unattended upgrades in the background, you donā€˜t even notice when your system got downgraded because of not properly synced mirrors.

Experienced users which used the supported ways of upgrading Tumblweed (zypper dup), where able to interact and stop the process. See latest forum posts.

Most users keep control by reading what zypper wants to do and actively maintain their system. Other user donā€˜t want to know whats going on on their system and shift system operations into the background (aka loosing control).

2 Likes
26

I concur ^^