Serverguide Automatic Updates contains inconsistencies and / or errors

[BUGHUNTER]

This page

https://help.ubuntu.com/12.04/serverguide/automatic-updates.html

contains wrong or inconsistent information.

1.) It is written in this page:

"To enable automatic updates, edit /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/10periodic and set the appropriate apt configuration options: "

but there is no file /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/10periodic anywhere after installing 12.04 and the unattended-updates package. Should this file be CREATED? Or will it be created somehow automagically and we can edit it after automatic creation? Or is this just an error?

2.) It is written in this page:

"You can read more about apt Periodic configuration options in the /etc/cron.daily/apt script header. "

but if I look into /etc/cron.daily/apt I see this:

"Create /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/02periodic file to set your preference. "

This is very irritating. Which file will be used or has to be edited or has to be created?

It is inacceptable that users need to debug scripts to get this basic security related feature working flawless - the information provided is irritating and misguiding - if there was only one feature of Ubuntu that should be documented 100% correctly, then it should be automatic updates, as errors or misguiding information in this area will lead to thousands of servers NOT auto-updating correctly.

Please correct ASAP, thanks!

[Alexander Gabriel (einalex)]

I agree, the documentation of this is inconsistent and confusing. In it's current form it isn't very helpful.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[inneas (inneas)]

Still there in 14.04...

[lm2b (lm2b)]

Confirmed on 14.04 server.
The worst is that no one is right.
The configuration appears to be in the "20auto-upgrades" file.

[David White (cppege-david-9ei9ny)]

I just got thrown by this. I've set up loads of machines and I'm sure it's usually 10periodic but was surprised to see it 20auto-upgrades. Is there some other logic driving the file names or is it just my memory?

[GilgongoJones (gilgongo)]

Please can somebody with edit rights on the page change the line that says:

"To enable automatic updates, edit /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/10periodic and set the appropriate apt configuration options:"

to be:

"To enable automatic updates, edit /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/20auto-upgrades and set the appropriate apt configuration options:"

This bug was reported 2 years ago... :-(

[Doug Smythies (dsmythies)]

Now, it seems that even if one answers "No automatic updates" during installation, automatic updates will still be enabled.

It also seems that the file /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/10periodic isn't even used anymore.
In addition to comment #6 above about editing /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/20auto-upgrades, with systemd this might help:

sudo systemctl disable apt-daily.service # disable run when system boot
sudo systemctl disable apt-daily.timer # disable timer run

On my main test server it has also been deleting old kernels, including the second to last one.

Peter this one is assigned to you. Will you fix it? If not I'll take over the assignment. Obviously at this point precise is a "will not fix".

[Doug Smythies (dsmythies)]

How we deal with this in terms of documentation depends a bit on how this bug plays out:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/debian-installer/+bug/1647790

[Peter Matulis (petermatulis)]

@Doug
I removed myself so you can grab it. Thanks for the ping.

[Jurjen de Vries (ubuntu-raceman)]

Can I help someway to edit the documentation? I just had the problem myself being confused, and now see there are more people with the same confusion since 2012! I guess that documentation is done by volunteers, which I really appreciate, but if I can help someway such as in Wikipedia, that would be great to keep it updated.

[Doug Smythies (dsmythies)]

The updated serverguide hasn't actually been published yet. It is in string freeze with about 1 week left in the two week translation catch-up window. Then it will be published and the status of this bug report can then be set to "Fix Released"