apticron(1)

✨ NAME ✨

apticron — generates a mail listing packages which are pending an upgrade

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🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

apticron [--cron]

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💅 DESCRIPTION 💅

okay so bestie, apticron is a shell script 💖 and what it does is it generates a mail with a list of all the packages that are currently pending an upgrade, plus a lil summary of changes — using apt-listchanges — sent straight to a configurable Email address. iconic behavior honestly.

It's mainly intended for automatic notification of pending security updates, but ngl you can also use it in a whole bunch of other situations where timely updates are necessary. no cap.

The --cron option is only meant to be used when it's invoked by cron, so that it doesn't run more than once a day. don't be out here using it for fun, it's giving "scheduled queen only" 👑

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🎀 FILES 🎀

• /etc/apticron/apticron.conf — your custom settings go into this file, like the email and the profile for apt-listchanges. You can use /usr/lib/apticron/apticron.conf as a template. The values you set in /etc/apticron/apticron.conf will override the default settings in /usr/lib/apticron/apticron.conf.
• /etc/cron.d/apticron — the cron job for executing apticron daily. ⏰
• /var/lib/apticron/cron_run — a time stamp file used by apticron when it's invoked with the --cron option. it's literally just keeping receipts of when it last ran bestie.

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🦋 SEE ALSO 🦋

apt-get(8), apt-listchanges(1), cron(8)

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💀 BUGS 💀

so in a particular situation, apticron may report non-installed packages to be upgraded. 😭 it's inconvenient, yeah, but fr fr it's not a bug in apticron itself.

Please see https://bugs.debian.org/544481#105 for details.

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👑 AUTHOR 👑

Apticron was initially developed by Colm MacCarthaigh <colm.maccarthaigh@heanet.ie> with contributions from Marc Sherman <msherman@projectile.ca>. Since 2006 it's maintained and improved by Tiago Bortoletto Vaz <tiago@debian.org>. legends only, we love to see it 🫶

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that's the whole thing bestie, and yeah — this was the apticron(1) page from the General Commands Manual. go forth and stay upgraded ✨🦋🎀