Apt

Debian/Ubuntu package manager

Documentation

Phased Packages

• About apt upgrade and phased updates

Unattended upgrades

Links

• https://help.ubuntu.com/community/AutomaticSecurityUpdates
• Using Unattended-Upgrades on Debian and Ubuntu
• https://wiki.debian.org/UnattendedUpgrades
• https://linuxblog.io/how-to-enable-unattended-upgrades-on-ubuntu-debian/
• the apt manpage you were looking for

Enabling/disabling unattended upgrades

Maybe install it first

apt install unattended-upgrades

that will most likely also enable unattended upgrades then

dpkg-reconfigure unattended-upgrades

The dialog will show which option is selected now.

The relevant systemd service

apt-daily-upgrade.service

Disable unattended upgrades

In /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/20auto-upgrades

APT::Periodic::Unattended-Upgrade "0";

The logs

/var/log/unattended-upgrades/*.log

FAQ

Unattended-upgrade is not upgrading all packages

That's normal, it defaults to upgrading only security updates.

Unattended-Upgrade::DevRelease "auto";

Only works on "dev releases", which is any not .04

What is this Allowed-Origins about?

Check output of

apt -s upgrade

you might see something like

Conf cloud-init (25.1.2-0ubuntu0~22.04.2 Ubuntu:22.04/jammy-updates

which will match

${distro_id}:${distro_codename}-updates

No packages found that can be upgraded unattended

By default "${distro_id}:${distro_codename}-updates"; is commented out in /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/50unattended-upgrades, so to get those updated as well, uncomment that line.

HOWTO

Extract files from .deb

dpkg -x foo.deb ~/foo

also

mkdir tmp
dpkg-deb -R original.deb tmp

Pin a version

• Pinning Howto

List installed packages

apt list --installed

Upgrade just one package

apt-get install --only-upgrade <packagename>

exclude package from upgrade

apt-mark hold somepackage

and to undo

apt-mark unhold somepackage

Disable source in deb822 source file

add

Enabled: no

FAQ

What is new style sources files called?

deb822

the following packages have been kept back:

Time to apt-get dist-upgrade ( but check [1]first But it could be different things. See https://askubuntu.com/questions/601/the-following-packages-have-been-kept-back-why-and-how-do-i-solve-it Perhaps:

apt-get upgrade package-that-is-kept-back

or try

apt install package-that-is-kept-back

What version of a package is going to be installed?

apt-cache policy <package>

What package does a file belong to?

dpkg -S /path/to/file

Error messages

InRelease doesn't support architecture 'i386'

set arch=amd64 in sources old style or Architectures: amd64 new style

E: Could not get lock /var/lib/apt/lists/lock. It is held by process 1538337 (apt-get)

Try

systemctl restart packagekit

and check

fuser /var/lib/apt/lists/lock 

again

Repository changed its 'Version' value

Try

apt-get --allow-releaseinfo-change update

The repository 'http://security.debian.org buster/updates Release' no longer has a Release file

time to upgrade entire system

Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.

Try

dpkg --get-selections | grep hold

What packages depend on package

apt-cache rdepends --installed libc6-dev

Clear cache

apt-get clean

Could not handshake: The TLS connection was non-properly terminated.

try http instead of https

Depends: but it is not going to be installed

First try

apt-get update && apt-get upgrade

Which services should be restarted?

That's from needrestart

Prevent restarting all services when installing a package

NEEDRESTART_MODE=i apt install somepackage

What repository provides package

apt policy <packagename>

Error messages

Key is stored in legacy trusted.gpg keyring

Check apt-key is deprecated

Certificate verification failed: The certificate is NOT trusted.

try

deb [trusted=yes] ...

in sources.list, but things might be worse than that, in case of launchpad change to

https://ppa.launchpadcontent.net/

apt-key is deprecated. Manage keyring files in trusted.gpg.d instead

See apt-key is deprecated

The following upgrades have been deferred due to phasing

apt install <whatever package it lists>

needrestart

Show which services need restarting

needrestart -rl

Service restarts being deferred

Probably services like networkd-dispatcher.service. Check /etc/needrestart/needrestart.conf for $nrconf{override_rc}