APT-DATER(5)

💖 apt-dater.xml — the config file of apt-dater(8) 💖

okay bestie, welcome to the manual page for apt-dater.xml (that's the apt-dater(5) one, in case you're keeping track) 🎀

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✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

<apt-dater xmlns:xi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XInclude">
    <ssh
     spawn-agent="true">

        <add-key fn="/path/to/id_rsa1"/>
        <add-key fn="/path/to/id_rsa2"/>
    </ssh>

    <paths
     hosts-file="path-to/hosts.xml"
     stats-dir="path-to/stats"/>

    <history
        record="true"
     err-pattern="((?<!no )error|warning|fail)"/>
</apt-dater>

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🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

So apt-dater.xml is literally the configuration file for apt-dater(8). And apt-dater(8)? It's a program that manages package updates across a large number of remote hosts over SSH. Big swarm energy. 🐝

This man page walks you through the parameters of apt-dater.xml briefly — no gatekeeping here. The default spot for this file is $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/apt-dater/apt-dater.xml. 💅

Oh and heads up: the config file gets parsed using libxml2, and it supports Xincludes. Fancy, right? ✨

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👑 OPTIONS 👑

Attributes of the 'paths' element

• hosts-file="$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/apt-dater/hosts.xml" — where the file that contains all the hosts you're managing with apt-dater lives. (optional)
• stats-dir="$XDG_DATA_HOME/apt-dater" — where the directory that holds the status files of any host lives. (optional)

Attributes of the 'screen' element

• rc-file="$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/apt-dater/screenrc" — the location of the screen(1) config file. (optional)
• title="%m # %u@%h:%p" — a template for screen titles, built with string escapes. (optional)
• no-dumps="false" — turns support of screen dumps on/off. (optional)
• query-maintainer="false" — if you set this to 1, apt-dater will ask for the maintainer's name on startup. If you set it to 2, it'll only ask when no MAINTAINER environment variable is set.

Attributes of the 'ssh' element

• cmd="/usr/bin/ssh — the location of the ssh-client binary.
• sftp-cmd — the command to initiate sftp file transfer, e.g. /usr/bin/sftp
• opt-cmd-flags — extra ssh-client command flags, which get appended.
• spawn-agent="false" — if enabled, apt-dater tries to spawn ssh-agent(1) when none is already running. ssh-add(1) gets called to load your private keys.
• add-keys — the list of private keys that should be loaded when apt-dater calls ssh-add(1).

ngl, here's the tea on keys: apt-dater will try to load additional private SSH keys using ssh-add(1) during start. Those keys need to be listed as add-key child elements. And the attribute fn refers to the filename of the private key:

<ssh spawn-agent="false" ..>
  <add-key fn="/path/to/id_rsa1"/>
</ssh>

Attributes of the 'commands' element

• CmdRefresh="apt-dater-host refresh" — the command used to refresh the status of the managed host.
• CmdUpgrade="apt-dater-host upgrade" — the command used to initiate an upgrade of a managed host.
• CmdInstall="apt-dater-host install %s" — the command used to update a single package. The %s gets replaced by the name of the package. ✨

Attributes of the 'appearance' element

• colors — set your own color style of the ui components. To highlight colors you can use the bright* keyword. Example: Colors=menu brightgreen blue;status brightgreen blue;selector black red;

Components are:

• default
• menu
• status
• selector
• hoststatus
• query
• input

Colors are:

• default
• black
• cyan
• green
• magenta
• red
• white
• yellow

Attributes of the 'auto-ref' element

• enabled="true" — enabled the auto refresh feature if compiled in (see README.autoref).

Attributes of the 'notify' element

• beep="true" — enables user notification by terminal bell. 🔔
• flash="true" — enables user notification by terminal flashing.

Attributes of the 'history' element

• err-pattern="((?<!no )error|warning|fail)" — a regular expression pattern to match the screen output. A match means the user should be asked to review the output (using less). (Optional)
• record="true" — enables session recording using script(1). (Optional)

Attributes of the 'hooks' element

• pre-update="/etc/apt-dater/pre-upg.d",
• pre-refresh="/etc/apt-dater/pre-ref.d",
• pre-install="/etc/apt-dater/pre-ins.d",
• pre-connect="/etc/apt-dater/pre-con.d",
• post-update="/etc/apt-dater/post-upg.d",
• post-refresh="/etc/apt-dater/post-ref.d",
• post-install="/etc/apt-dater/post-ins.d",
• post-connect="/etc/apt-dater/post-con.d" — hooks to be run before and after an action on a host is done. The values should be path names, and any executable script within these directories will be run by run-parts(8). 🫶

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🦋 STRING ESCAPES 🦋

apt-dater(8) provides a string escape mechanism, and the escape character is %. iconic tbh.

Table 1. List of supported escapes.

• % — replaced by the escape character
• h — replaced by the hostname
• H — replaced by the SSH hostname used for connecting
• m — replaced by the maintainer name
• p — replaced by the SSH port number
• u — replaced by the SSH username
• U — replaced by the SSH username appended by '@', empty string if no SSH username is configured.

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🎀 FILES 🎀

• apt-dater.xml — the configuration file of apt-dater.
• hosts.xml — contains all hosts you would like to manage.

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🌈 SEE ALSO 🌈

apt-dater(8), apt-get(1), debtrack, screen(1), script(1), ssh(1), XDG Base Directory Specification[1].

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💜 AUTHORS 💜

• Thomas Liske <liske@ibh.de>
  • maintainer
• Andre Ellguth
  • ex-maintainer

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⭐ COPYRIGHT ⭐

Copyright © 2008-2015 IBH IT-Service GmbH [https://www.ibh.de/]

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📝 NOTES 📝

1. XDG Base Directory Specification http://www.freedesktop.org/Standards/basedir-spec

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okay that's the whole thing, no cap. this page came from the apt-dater project and it's dated February 28, 2015 — go forth and configure, bestie, you got this 💅✨🦋