UPGRADE-SYSTEM.CONF(5)

📦
version 1.11.5 · 5 versions
, in ubuntu stonking

✨ upgrade-system.conf — the config file for upgrade-system(8) ✨

okay so bestie, welcome to upgrade-system.conf(5), the manual page for the config file of upgrade-system(8) 💅 — that's the Debian admin utility. This little file is where you tell the tool which command options it should use when it calls out to apt-get(8) and deborphan(1) inside upgrade-system(8).

And the rules? Very chill, very simple: lines that start with a hash mark ("#") are ignored, and empty lines are ignored too. That's it. That's the whole vibe. 🎀

🌸 ENVIRONMENT 🌸

Your config file can hold any of these environment variables, and here's the tea on each one 🫖✨

UPDATEOPTS

This one tells it which apt-get(8) options to use with the update command. The built-in defaults are:

UPDATEOPTS="--quiet --quiet --yes --allow-releaseinfo-change-codename
--allow-releaseinfo-change-version"
⭐ Heads up bestie: go check the apt-get(8) manual page to see which options are actually available for your particular version before you set this variable. Different versions, different menus, iykyk.

UPGRADEOPTS

This one picks which one of dist-upgrade or upgrade gets executed as the apt-get(8) upgrade command — plus whatever command options you want. The built-in defaults are:

UPGRADEOPTS="--purge --option APT::Get::Build-Dep-Automatic=true
--auto-remove --fix-broken dist-upgrade"
⭐ Same energy: consult the apt-get(8) manual page to check which options are available for any particular version, before setting this variable.

ORPHANOPTS

This one is for deborphan(1) command options 🌈 The built-in defaults are:

ORPHANOPTS="--libdevel --guess-all --no-guess-debug"
⭐ You already know: consult the deborphan(1) manual page to check which options are available for any particular version, before setting this variable.

CLEANOPTS

This one selects which one of autoclean or clean gets executed as the apt-get(8) cleaning command. The built-in default is:

CLEANOPTS="clean"
⭐ And yes, consult the apt-get(8) manual page to check which options are available for any particular version, before setting this variable. 💖

FLAUSCH 🚨

Setting this variable enables various extremely pedantic purge options. Not like, cute-pedantic. Like, extremely pedantic.

This variable has no default value.

💀 Okay so real talk: this feature is totally experimental. Usage is strongly discouraged and should only be attempted by truly experienced Debian administrators. It can be used to sanitize a Debian system after a distribution upgrade, or to detect packages that don't conform to the Debian Policy. Setting the variable as a command line environment — only when needed — is considered a safer approach than adding it to upgrade-system.conf variables.
sudo FLAUSCH=jawohl upgrade-system

📝 NOTES 📝

If there's no configuration file at all, upgrade-system(8) will just use all those built-in default values listed above. No drama, it copes. 🦋

apt-get(8) --purge --option APT::Get::Build-Dep-Automatic=true options roughly correspond to deborphan(1) --find-config --libdevel.

Because upgrade-system(8) is an APT front-end, all precautions relating to APT configuration should be observed. Pay special attention to:

  • /etc/apt/preferences

To prevent untested packages from overwriting stable ones, setting this combination of APT preferences is recommended:

Package: *
Pin: release a=stable
Pin-Priority: 990

Package: *
Pin: release a=testing
Pin-Priority: 500

Package: *
Pin: release a=unstable
Pin-Priority: 100

Package: *
Pin: release a=experimental
Pin-Priority: 1

This enforces a priority on packages from Stable, yet still allows ones from Testing, Unstable or Experimental to get installed via appropriate apt-get(8) options to override the default release. Balance? Iconic. 👑

💀 BUGS 💀

Certain combinations of deborphan(1) options purge a dangerous quantity of packages, potentially leaving a system in a severely crippled state. Not a vibe. Please be careful, bestie, fr fr. 😭

👑 AUTHORS 👑

  • Copyright © 2004-2026 Martin-Éric Racine <martin-eric.racine@iki.fi>
  • Copyright © 2004,2012 Christoph Schindler <hop@30hopsmax.at>
  • Copyright © 2003-2004 Martin Zdrahal <martin.zdrahal@konflux.at>

📜 LICENSE 📜

SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0-or-later

🫶 SEE ALSO 🫶

okay that's the whole page, you ate that 💅✨ thanks for reading, this was the Debian GNU/Linux version of upgrade-system.conf(5) — the handy manual page for the upgrade-system.conf(5) config file — and you can find it all cozy on the Debian package tracker over at https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/... with the dated 2025-09-19 touch. mwah, go forth and configure responsibly 🎀💖

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