Probing the update notifications

[OneLine]

Looking how this #%&/& is working: http://www.kubuntuforums.net/showthr...tions-in-12-04


Background

The Muon is a front end for the Debian package management apt/dpkg /5/.

The Apt settings can be found from the /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/. For the periodic things: /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/10periodic.

The Muon is using the software-properties-kde /1/ to edit the /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/10periodic.

Periodic processes can launched by the anacron /2/.

Tools

mail /3/ - Many applications are sending mail to the root and telling what is going on.

logsave /4/ - making the removing of the packages a bit easier.

How things are working at here

Installing the mail /4/ to receive the mail .

Muon > Settings > Configure Software Sources
Quick: Alt + F2 and: kdesudo software-properties-kde




Updates tab: Automatic updates = Check for updates: Daily

The /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/10periodic should have:

APT::Periodic::Update-Package-Lists "1";

The /etc/cron.daily/apt is telling:

# This file understands the following apt configuration variables:
# Values here are the default.
# Create /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/02periodic file to set your preference.
...
# APT::Periodic::Verbose "0";
# - Send report mail to root
# 0: no report (or null string)
# 1: progress report (actually any string)
# 2: + command outputs (remove -qq, remove 2>/dev/null, add -d)
# 3: + trace on

Adding to the /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/10periodic:

APT::Periodic::Verbose "3";

The daily cron job has been executed so re running it with the command:

sudo anacron -f -d

Anacron 2.3 started on 2012-02-21
Will run job `cron.daily' in 5 min.
Will run job `cron.weekly' in 10 min.
Will run job `cron.monthly' in 15 min.
Job `cron.daily' started
Job `cron.daily' terminated (mailing output)
...

Looking the mail - it is root's mail:

sudo mail

"/var/mail/root": 1 message 1 new
>N 1 root@ammu2500pp Tue Feb 21 09:21 285/32417 Anacron job 'cron.daily' on ammu

/etc/cron.daily/apt:
verbose level 3
+ check_power
+ which on_ac_power
...
Reading package lists...
Building dependency tree...
Reading state information...
+ date +%s
+ now=1329808830
+ UpdateInterval=0
...
+ echo apt-key net-update (success)
apt-key net-update (success)
+ eval apt-get -y update
+ apt-get -y update
Ign http://archive.ubuntu.com precise InRelease
Ign http://deb.opera.com stable InRelease
Ign http://extras.ubuntu.com precise InRelease
...
& q
Saved 1 message in /home/oneline/mbox

=> The was no problems - The "apt-get -y update" did update the package database.

=> The /var/lib/update-notifier/updates-available is:

ls -l /var/lib/update-notifier/updates-available

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1 Feb 21 09:22 /var/lib/update-notifier/updates-available

=> The status for the humans is:

/usr/lib/update-notifier/apt-check --human-readable

21 packages can be updated.
0 updates are security updates.

The update notifier daemon (?) is sending notifier: update-notifier-common /6/ -> update-notifier-kde /7/.

The KDE will show the notifier, depending the users settings. System Settings > Application and System Notifications...



1. software-properties-kde

Description: manage the repositories that you install software from (kde)
This software provides an abstraction of the used apt repositories.
It allows you to easily manage your distribution and independent software
vendor software sources.
.
This package contains a Qt/KDE based graphical interface.

2. man anacron

NAME
anacron - runs commands periodically

DESCRIPTION
Anacron can be used to execute commands periodically, with a frequency
specified in days. Unlike cron(8), it does not assume that the machine is
running continuously. Hence, it can be used on machines that aren't run‐
ning 24 hours a day, to control daily, weekly, and monthly jobs that are
usually controlled by cron.

More: http://askubuntu.com/questions/90816...-execution-tim

3. mail

man mail

NAME
mail, mailx, Mail — send and receive mail

bsd-mailx

Description: simple mail user agent
mailx is the traditional command-line-mode mail user agent.
Even if you don't use it, it may be required by other programs.

4. man logsave

NAME
logsave - save the output of a command in a logfile

Log of sudo apt-get install bsd-mailx
Tue Feb 21 09:12:57 2012

Reading package lists...
Building dependency tree...
Reading state information...

The following extra packages will be installed:
postfix
Suggested packages:
procmail postfix-mysql postfix-pgsql postfix-ldap postfix-pcre sasl2-bin
dovecot-common postfix-cdb ufw
The following NEW packages will be installed:
bsd-mailx postfix
0 upgraded, 2 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.

5. man apt-get

NAME
apt-get - APT package handling utility -- command-line interface

update
update is used to resynchronize the package index files from their
sources. The indexes of available packages are fetched from the
location(s) specified in /etc/apt/sources.list.

-y, --yes, --assume-yes
Automatic yes to prompts; assume "yes" as answer to all prompts and run
non-interactively.

6. http://packages.ubuntu.com/precise/u...otifier-common

7. http://packages.ubuntu.com/precise/update-notifier-kde