Core Update Advisor

Hello together,

Thank you to share the Ipfire Software.

I’m not yet fully aware of the potentials and to perfect the configuration of it.

Just I’m triying actualy to update automatically the plugins through cron job.
For which I found some solutions on your wiki.

Another theme was to update automatically the Core Updates. Once a while I check it in the Web Interface of Ipf. Maybe you intended to built in this feature in the next time. Maybe something that interacts with your Desktop to inform you.

On this, I wanted to share with you a Java-Code, which checks periodically for new Core Updates, and only informs you.

If you find it useful, am I allowed to post here the Source Code and Programm ?

Have a good Day,
John

Welcome to our community.

It is possible to automate updates. But I would recommend this for addons only.
A Core Update may need a reboot, for a new kernel e.g. I think it isn’t worth to develop a really functioning program to decide and restart the system.
Further it is better to do such a big task by a cronjob. How can one decide whether the system is in an appropriate state? Sometimes urgent task would be disturbed by such a reboot.
Doing the CU just to the right time is much better. Also an attended update shows possible issues immediately.

Dear Mr. Bitsch,

Thank you for your Explanation.

I agree with you, that a reboot request more attention to certain Configurations.

In the case of my simple Programm which runs on a Desktop (maybe be more for SOHO Systems) .
It is only as Information, just checking the main Web Download Site for new Core Updates. It runs in the background, and starts at Boot Time too, through a Batch File.
As Java is Platform indepenedent, it may run also on non-Windows Systems.

If someone is interested I will post a Link.

Have a good Day,
John

Or for example for my simple, small and standalone App.
If installing Java or porting to another Programing Language would be a Problem.
I was thinking maybe the Remote Logging Feature through SysLog would be an option. Due I couldn’t made SysLog work on Windows 11. I don’t know if SysLog Informations would include Informations about new Core Updates ?

Thanks

As you can see from fcrontab -l nightly an update check is done. pakfire logs its activity to syslog
(/var/log/messages).

About Java, I think there was a decision not to have it in an IPFire system because of security reasons. Most programs in IPFire are written in Perl and Python. ( see e.g. Install addon manually - #3 by space)

Thank you, yes this would be the better option.
I will check this soon.

Do you have an advise for a Syslog client/server application which runs stable for IpFire on windows(11) or Linux(ubuntu) ?

Thanks.

Have a good Day,

I use the built in client.
Sent to my server.

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The fcron check for an update causes a message to be shown on the IPFire WUI home page indicating that a Core Update is available.

The following screenshot shows the Notice in red:-

You can also sign up for the IPFire newsletter which includes all the Core Update announcements. So if you don’t look at your IPFire WUI for a few days and an update occurs you will still get notified by email.

https://www.ipfire.org/blog

If you don’t want an email the blog info is also available via RSS feed, Mastodon, X (Twitter) or LinkedIn, accessible via the same link above.

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