Re: Timer doing apt update
On 20/02/2024 14:48, Erwan David wrote: Le 20/02/2024 à 03:20, Max Nikulin a écrit : busctl get-property \ org.freedesktop.NetworkManager \ /org/freedesktop/NetworkManager \ org.freedesktop.NetworkManager Metered It would also require to configure NetworkManager to set this correctly. Eg When I use USB tethering. (same NetworkManager connexion may be used at different places, without any way to simply detect this, when you do not use Wifi) I am unsure if the following would be convenient. You may create a couple of connections with and without connection.metered set. Default is metered, but when you know that currently traffic is not expensive, you may manually switch to one marked as non-metered.
Re: Timer doing apt update
On 20/02/2024 19:44, Greg Wooledge wrote: 1) This apt-daily.timer stuff is quite complex and difficult to discover and understand. I am sorry that I confused enough people by my statements. I believed that by default this timer runs "apt update" every day while upgrades are not enabled out of the box. Perhaps I saw active updates on an Ubuntu box and maybe desktop environment stuff was involved. So the apt package just installs timers and services, but configuration files to enable update and upgrade come from unattended-upgrades and maybe some other packages. Unfortunately ExecCondition is allowed only in the [Service] section, so it is not possible to avoid starting of timers basing on result of a helper script that queries apt configuration. In the absence of systemd likely cron jobs may be configured (apticron?).
Re: Timer doing apt update
Hello, On Tue, Feb 20, 2024 at 07:44:55AM -0500, Greg Wooledge wrote: >This thing has no configuration file by default; you have to read the >comments in the software itself to figure out what it does. Or, say, the Debian Administrator's Handbook. https://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/debian-handbook/sect.regular-upgrades.en.html The configuration options are also described in the man page for apt.conf. https://manpages.debian.org/bookworm/apt/apt.conf.5.en.html#PERIODIC_AND_ARCHIVES_OPTIONS Thanks, Andy -- https://bitfolk.com/ -- No-nonsense VPS hosting
Re: Timer doing apt update
On Tue, Feb 20, 2024 at 07:44:55AM -0500, Greg Wooledge wrote: [...] > For me, it's a combination of two things: > > 1) This apt-daily.timer stuff is quite complex and difficult to discover >and understand [...] I gather this from the thread, yes. I just checked, and the scripts come with apt -- but they are ineffective if one is "on" SysV init. All is well. Phew ;-) Cheers -- t signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: Timer doing apt update
On Tue, Feb 20, 2024 at 11:39:56AM +, Andy Smith wrote: > On Tue, Feb 20, 2024 at 10:17:17AM +0100, Michael wrote: > > i very much dislike the fact that my systems do things i am not aware of. > > I think one of the purposes of a Linux distribution is to pull > together a collection of disparate software of their choosing and > make default decisions for their users. > > I find it hard to believe that you bother to delve into the > behaviour of your system in most other ways, but suddenly you've > become aware of a systemd timer and now it's a problem for you. None > of this is hidden. You've been able to read this script and work out > how it works. For me, it's a combination of two things: 1) This apt-daily.timer stuff is quite complex and difficult to discover and understand. Most subsystems have a single configuration file that controls what they do, and it's in some place that's relatively easy to find. This thing has no configuration file by default; you have to read the comments in the software itself to figure out what it does. 2) In the absence of a full understanding, it's easy to suspect that these timers will download package lists and/or packages from the Internet. That's what the names imply, after all. Here's what the end user (me) sees upon first inspection: * apt-daily.timer is enabled (by default) * apt-daily.timer runs twice a day * apt-daily.service has Description=Daily apt download activities * apt-daily.service runs "/usr/lib/apt/apt-helper wait-online" and then "/usr/lib/apt/apt.systemd.daily update" If the end user doesn't actually read through this 538 line shell script to analyze its behavior, this all *looks* very much like "run apt update twice a day". Likewise, there's a second timer: * apt-daily-upgrade.timer is enabled (by default) * apt-daily-upgrade.timer runs once a day * apt-daily-upgrade.service has Description=Daily apt upgrade and clean activities * apt-daily-upgrade.service runs "/usr/lib/apt/apt-helper wait-online" and then "/usr/lib/apt/apt.systemd.daily install" As with the other timer and service, this all looks very much like it will upgrade packages, once a day.
Re: Timer doing apt update
Le 20/02/2024 à 12:46, Andy Smith a écrit : Hi, On Tue, Feb 20, 2024 at 08:52:09AM +0100, Erwan David wrote: I use KDE, and I do not know wether discover does an update by itself. I do not thind any setting about this I think it is very likely that KDE has an equivalent to GNOME, which does the equivalent of "apt update" every day and then notifies you about available package upgrades. Thanks, Andy Yes, and it seems to be plasma-discover. But I do noit find how to configure it NOT to update package list automatically. A systemctl --user list-units '*discover*' gives UNIT LOAD ACTIVE SUB DESCRIPTION app-org.kde.discover-5f3c6a37712a431b929cbe82aa9555dc.scope loaded active running Discover - Logithèque app-org.kde.discover.notifier@autostart.service loaded active running Discover a list-unit-files says the service is generated. I did nit find from what it os generated. There is /etc/xdg/autostart/org.kde.discover.notifier.desktop which ends in Exec=/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libexec/DiscoverNotifier Icon=system-software-update Type=Application NoDisplay=true X-KDE-autostart-phase=1 OnlyShowIn=KDE DiscoverNotifier comes form the plasma-discover package The pacakge contains a /usr/bin/plasma-discover-update binary, whose name appears in DiscoverNotifier binary... I'll try looking this way. I would have preferred being able to disable it (especially because it shows me a systray indication when there are upgradable packages) but if it is not possible I can remove it (it won't remove the meta-packages of the DE)
Re: Timer doing apt update
Hi, On Tue, Feb 20, 2024 at 08:52:09AM +0100, Erwan David wrote: > I use KDE, and I do not know wether discover does an update by itself. I do > not thind any setting about this I think it is very likely that KDE has an equivalent to GNOME, which does the equivalent of "apt update" every day and then notifies you about available package upgrades. Thanks, Andy -- https://bitfolk.com/ -- No-nonsense VPS hosting
Re: Timer doing apt update
Hi, On Tue, Feb 20, 2024 at 10:17:17AM +0100, Michael wrote: > i very much dislike the fact that my systems do things i am not aware of. I think one of the purposes of a Linux distribution is to pull together a collection of disparate software of their choosing and make default decisions for their users. I find it hard to believe that you bother to delve into the behaviour of your system in most other ways, but suddenly you've become aware of a systemd timer and now it's a problem for you. None of this is hidden. You've been able to read this script and work out how it works. Do you also build your own kernels so you can personally sign off on every kernel config choice, or do you trust the Debian kernel team's ideas about what should be built in, modularised or not available at all? For me it's a problem when things can't be customised. I expect default choices to be made but I don't expect to agree with 100% of them. That's OK. Thanks, Andy -- https://bitfolk.com/ -- No-nonsense VPS hosting
Re: Timer doing apt update
On Tuesday, February 20, 2024 5:23:35 AM CET, Greg Wooledge wrote: I'm not sure how to interpret this combination of things. Do these default settings mean "the update/upgrade script will run, but it won't actually do anything"? kind of... lines 354-360 (on bookworm) of said script (/usr/lib/apt/apt.systemd.daily) checks if 'APT::Periodic::Enable' is set to 1. if not, the script exits with 0: # check if the user really wants to do something AutoAptEnable=1 # default is yes eval $(apt-config shell AutoAptEnable APT::Periodic::Enable) if [ $AutoAptEnable -eq 0 ]; then exit 0 fi i very much dislike the fact that my systems do things i am not aware of. i don't mind if this timer/service exists, but i do not want it to be enabled by default. especially if its default setting is to do nothing (useful, critical, necessary)! why add complication to a system and waste its resources if it defaults to not doing anything? why not add .timer and .service, but keep it disabled by default? admin's choice... imho it is even easier and more intuitive to enable the timer than to add a file in which i change/set an option to prevent an already started process to exit prematurely having already wasted system resources. but that's just me. ymmv... greetings...
Re: Timer doing apt update
Le 20/02/2024 à 01:58, Andy Smith a écrit : Hi, On Mon, Feb 19, 2024 at 08:35:18PM +0100, Erwan David wrote: Sorry il was packagekit, I made a mistake while writing. If it's packagekit then isn't it going to be some part of your desktop environment? Which desktop environment are you using? GNOME will download updates and prompt you to install. To disable this open "GNOME software",m burger menu, "Update Preferences". The default behaviour of GNOME Software is to only download upgrades when on an unmetered connection so if you are using GNOME and this is what is happening, then as Max says telling NetworkManager that your connection is metered should stop it. I disable the timers, thanks I don't think it's any of the systemd timers or unattended-upgrades. Thanks, Andy I use KDE, and I do not know wether discover does an update by itself. I do not thind any setting about this -- Erwan David
Re: Timer doing apt update
Le 20/02/2024 à 03:20, Max Nikulin a écrit : On 20/02/2024 02:35, Erwan David wrote: Le 19/02/2024 à 18:00, Max Nikulin a écrit : systemctl disable --now apt-daily.timer apt-daily-upgrade.timer Perhaps it is possible to write a script that will respect connection.metered property set by NetworkManager. I disable the timers, thanks To avoid confusion, these timers are from the apt package, not from unattended-upgrades. So they are active on most Debian hosts. Desktop environments may display notifications after actions initiated by these timers. Likely desktop environments may do more, e.g. to query GNOME application shop for updates and initiate more frequent updates. I'll have a look at connection.metered Out of curiosity I have queried https://codesearch.debian.net. It seems, apt has no notion of metered connection. Perhaps the effect can be achieved by adding to unit configuration some Condition* mentioned in systemd.directives(7) https://stackoverflow.com/questions/43228973/detect-if-current-connection-is-metered-with-networkmanager busctl get-property \ org.freedesktop.NetworkManager \ /org/freedesktop/NetworkManager \ org.freedesktop.NetworkManager Metered It would also require to configure NetworkManager to set this correctly. Eg When I use USB tethering. (same NetworkManager connexion may be used at different places, without any way to simply detect this, when you do not use Wifi) -- Erwan David
Re: Timer doing apt update
On Tue, Feb 20, 2024 at 03:56:49AM +, Andy Smith wrote: > On Mon, Feb 19, 2024 at 10:21:24PM -0500, Greg Wooledge wrote: > > Does anyone know when these things changed, and why on earth nobody > > knew about it?! Did I miss a section in the release notes or something? > > Why are you shocked by this? Most of it is disabled by default (no > update / upgrade / unattended-upgrade). You have to set things like > APT::Periodic::Update-Package-Lists to 1. > > It's been there since Debian 9 (stretch) IIRC. > > The handbook has stuff about it. > > https://debian-handbook.info/browse/stable/sect.regular-upgrades.html According to this page, the configuration is in /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/10periodic (which does not exist on my system). Also according to this page, there is a script in /usr/lib/apt/apt.systemd.daily which describes the configuration variables (this script does exist). According to the /usr/lib/apt/apt.systemd.daily script, the /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/10periodic file has to be created if you want to change the defaults. OK. Also according to that script, the default values are listed in the comments of said script. These comments include: # APT::Periodic::Enable "1"; # - Enable the update/upgrade script (0=disable) which, if I'm reading this correctly, says that this thing is enabled by default. "This thing" being an "update/upgrade script". Whatever that means. The comments also include: # APT::Periodic::Update-Package-Lists "0"; # - Do "apt-get update" automatically every n-days (0=disable) # # APT::Periodic::Download-Upgradeable-Packages "0"; # - Do "apt-get upgrade --download-only" every n-days (0=disable) I'm not sure how to interpret this combination of things. Do these default settings mean "the update/upgrade script will run, but it won't actually do anything"?
Re: Timer doing apt update
Hi, On Mon, Feb 19, 2024 at 10:21:24PM -0500, Greg Wooledge wrote: > Does anyone know when these things changed, and why on earth nobody > knew about it?! Did I miss a section in the release notes or something? Why are you shocked by this? Most of it is disabled by default (no update / upgrade / unattended-upgrade). You have to set things like APT::Periodic::Update-Package-Lists to 1. It's been there since Debian 9 (stretch) IIRC. The handbook has stuff about it. https://debian-handbook.info/browse/stable/sect.regular-upgrades.html Thanks, Andy -- https://bitfolk.com/ -- No-nonsense VPS hosting
Re: Timer doing apt update
On Tue, Feb 20, 2024 at 09:20:11AM +0700, Max Nikulin wrote: > > > systemctl disable --now apt-daily.timer apt-daily-upgrade.timer > To avoid confusion, these timers are from the apt package, not from > unattended-upgrades. So they are active on most Debian hosts. Holy crap... when did this happen? I tried looking on salsa and it looks like the 1.8.y branch has these files, but the jessie branch does not. But I don't know where the "preset: enabled" thing comes from. So maybe the files were there but not enabled by default until recently? Maybe? Does anyone know when these things changed, and why on earth nobody knew about it?! Did I miss a section in the release notes or something?
Re: Timer doing apt update
On 20/02/2024 02:35, Erwan David wrote: Le 19/02/2024 à 18:00, Max Nikulin a écrit : systemctl disable --now apt-daily.timer apt-daily-upgrade.timer Perhaps it is possible to write a script that will respect connection.metered property set by NetworkManager. I disable the timers, thanks To avoid confusion, these timers are from the apt package, not from unattended-upgrades. So they are active on most Debian hosts. Desktop environments may display notifications after actions initiated by these timers. Likely desktop environments may do more, e.g. to query GNOME application shop for updates and initiate more frequent updates. I'll have a look at connection.metered Out of curiosity I have queried https://codesearch.debian.net. It seems, apt has no notion of metered connection. Perhaps the effect can be achieved by adding to unit configuration some Condition* mentioned in systemd.directives(7) https://stackoverflow.com/questions/43228973/detect-if-current-connection-is-metered-with-networkmanager busctl get-property \ org.freedesktop.NetworkManager \ /org/freedesktop/NetworkManager \ org.freedesktop.NetworkManager Metered
Re: Timer doing apt update
Hi, On Mon, Feb 19, 2024 at 08:35:18PM +0100, Erwan David wrote: > Sorry il was packagekit, I made a mistake while writing. If it's packagekit then isn't it going to be some part of your desktop environment? Which desktop environment are you using? GNOME will download updates and prompt you to install. To disable this open "GNOME software",m burger menu, "Update Preferences". The default behaviour of GNOME Software is to only download upgrades when on an unmetered connection so if you are using GNOME and this is what is happening, then as Max says telling NetworkManager that your connection is metered should stop it. > I disable the timers, thanks I don't think it's any of the systemd timers or unattended-upgrades. Thanks, Andy -- https://bitfolk.com/ -- No-nonsense VPS hosting
Re: Timer doing apt update
Le 19/02/2024 à 18:00, Max Nikulin a écrit : On 19/02/2024 14:35, Erwan David wrote: After each boot, the equivalent of apt update is automatically done in background, through policykit (apt database is locked by policykitd). So I think there is a timer triggroing this. I'd like to disable this when my laptop is on expensive link (eg 4G link, or abroad). So I'd like to disable this timer, but I did not find it. If someone knws better than me... Perhaps I missed something since I have no idea why policykit (or polkit?) is involved. You may disable apt timers systemctl disable --now apt-daily.timer apt-daily-upgrade.timer Perhaps it is possible to write a script that will respect connection.metered property set by NetworkManager. Sorry il was packagekit, I made a mistake while writing. I disable the timers, thanks I'll have a look at connection.metered
Re: Timer doing apt update
On 19/02/2024 14:35, Erwan David wrote: After each boot, the equivalent of apt update is automatically done in background, through policykit (apt database is locked by policykitd). So I think there is a timer triggroing this. I'd like to disable this when my laptop is on expensive link (eg 4G link, or abroad). So I'd like to disable this timer, but I did not find it. If someone knws better than me... Perhaps I missed something since I have no idea why policykit (or polkit?) is involved. You may disable apt timers systemctl disable --now apt-daily.timer apt-daily-upgrade.timer Perhaps it is possible to write a script that will respect connection.metered property set by NetworkManager.
Re: Timer doing apt update
Erwan David writes: > Hello, > > After each boot, the equivalent of apt update is automatically done in > background, through policykit (apt database is locked by > policykitd). So I think there is a timer triggroing this. I'd like to > disable this when my laptop is on expensive link (eg 4G link, or > abroad). So I'd like to disable this timer, but I did not find it. If > someone knws better than me... If you're using the package unattended-upgrades (I'm not sure it ties to policykitd), then there are instructions in the Debian wiki at https://wiki.debian.org/UnattendedUpgrades#Modifying_download_and_upgrade_schedules_.28on_systemd.29 The timers in question are apt-daily.timer and apt-daily-upgrade.timer. Come to think of it, just running apt update shouldn't generate much traffic.
Timer doing apt update
Hello, After each boot, the equivalent of apt update is automatically done in background, through policykit (apt database is locked by policykitd). So I think there is a timer triggroing this. I'd like to disable this when my laptop is on expensive link (eg 4G link, or abroad). So I'd like to disable this timer, but I did not find it. If someone knws better than me... -- Erwan David
