APTITUDE-ROBOT-SESSION(8)

💖 aptitude-robot-session(8) 💖

okay bestie, so this is a User Commands page from section 8 of the manual, and it's all about aptitude-robot-session — the little helper script that runs your robot bestie without anybody needing to babysit it. no cap, it's giving "set it and forget it" energy. 🦋

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✨ NAME ✨

aptitude-robot-session — call aptitude-robot non-interactively 💅

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🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

aptitude-robot-session

that's it. that's the whole vibe. no flags, no arguments, just send it. 🎀

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👑 DESCRIPTION 👑

aptitude-robot-session is a helper script, and its whole personality is "meant to be run from cron or init scripts." literally, that's the assignment. 🫶

when it runs, it calls aptitude-robot with some options that are suitable for non-interactive use — because nobody's there to answer questions, bestie, and the robot knows that.

it also redirects all output (STDERR and STDOUT, both of them, the whole package 💀) to LOGFILE, which is defined in /etc/default/aptitude-robot.

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🎀 CONFIGURATION 🎀

there are a few configuration options you can define in /etc/default/aptitude-robot. here's the lineup:

• LOGFILE — the name of the file where all the output of aptitude-robot gets collected. defaults to /var/log/aptitude-robot.log ✨
• LOG_SESSION — the name of the file where the session log is accumulated. aptitude-robot-session will append its PID to this file so it does not overwrite a log file left over from a crashed earlier invocation. if aptitude-robot-session finishes properly, it will append the session log to LOGFILE and delete the session log. clean up, clean up 🧚
• SESSION_REPORT_COMMAND — an optional command, invoked with the session log as the only argument at the end of an aptitude-robot-session run. use it to file reports to monitoring systems or support mail addresses. very main character of you 💅
• MAX_LOGFILES_SIZE_BLOCKS — file size limit in blocks for the session log. this prevents endless loops if a package installation keeps asking the same question for which no terminal is available to provide an answer. 😭

but be aware that this limit also affects _all_ daemons started or restarted during the aptitude-robot-session run, including e.g. the OpenSSH daemon — which again will propagate the limit to its remote login sessions. use with care. 👀

• POST_SESSION_HOOK — a command that is run at the end of a successful aptitude-robot-session. e.g., use it for apt-get clean. little treat at the end 🍓

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⭐ EXIT STATUS ⭐

• aptitude-robot-session exits with 0 on success 🎉
• 1 if dpkg is locked 🔒
• 2 if apt failed to fetch some APT repositories 😔

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💀 BUGS 💀

the non-interactive nature of aptitude-robot-session may trigger the condition reported in https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/aptitude/+bug/257279

yeah. it's a known thing. go read the bug, iykyk 🙈

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🌈 SEE ALSO 🌈

aptitude-robot(8), aptitude(8)

go read those too, they're iconic 👑

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💜 AUTHORS 💜

Elmar S. Heeb <elmar@heebs.ch> and Axel Beckert <abe@debian.org>

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that's the whole page bestie!! 💖 this was version 1.5.5, dated 2023-03-01, and you just read APTITUDE-ROBOT-SESSION(8) — slay, you're officially caught up. periodt. ✨🎀🦋