From: Tomas Vinar To: Mike Patterson [CSCF] Subject: Debian automated security update Date: Tue, 8 Feb 2005 12:08:22 -0500 (EST) Here is the routine I am testing on my workstation (note: mine is woody, so some things are different from sarge): 1. Install package cron-apt 2. Create files /etc/apt/apt-security.conf and /etc/apt/sources-security.list as follows: element:/etc/apt# cat /etc/apt/apt-security.conf APT::Cache-Limit 10000000; Dir::Etc::SourceList /etc/apt/sources-security.list; element:/etc/apt# cat /etc/apt/sources-security.list deb http://security.debian.org woody/updates main contrib non-free 3. remove everything from /etc/cron/cron-apt/action.d, and instead create the following two files: element:/etc/cron-apt/action.d# cat 0-security update --config-file /etc/apt/apt-security.conf upgrade --config-file /etc/apt/apt-security.conf -y autoclean --config-file /etc/apt/apt-security.conf -y element:/etc/cron-apt/action.d# cat 1-update update 4. You can also edit some options in /etc/cron-apt/config to e-mail somebody, if updates fail, etc. --------------------------- I will let you know, if this approach works reasonably well. Hope this helps, Tomas