[aklug] Debian Question: Automatic Repository Refresh

[James Zuelow]

How often your repositories are updated depends on your system. Gnome or 
KDE desktops have little utilities to do that on some schedule (maybe 
triggered by a login?).  Server installs typically do not.


Desktop or not, I install cron-apt which will update via cron.daily.  
cron-apt won't report to you though, so I use apt-show-versions for a 
daily report.


I usually do something like this:


1) install cron-apt  - no configuration needed, it Just_Works.

2) run   /usr/bin/apt-show-versions -u from cron.


The -u flag to apt-show-versions will generate a list of packages with 
upgrades.  If there are none, it's silent.  So if you see the e-mail 
from cron you know something needs an upgrade.


James