apt-auto-update

Small all-architecture Debian package (all): one command to run apt update, upgrade, autoremove, autoclean, and clean in sequence, with optional cron scheduling (as root) and log rotation.

Intended for any APT-based system: Raspberry Pi OS, WSL with Ubuntu/Debian, and other.

Whenever possible, use your distribution’s built-in auto update tools instead of this package. For example, Linux Mint and some other distributions provide their own automatic update features.

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For users

Prerequisites at runtime

The package declares dependencies on cron (or an equivalent), logrotate, and sudo.

Install from .deb

sudo apt install ./apt-auto-update_*_all.deb

Usage

Command	Action
sudo apt-auto-update run	Run maintenance now
sudo apt-auto-update enable	Daily cron at 12:00 (noon), log /var/log/apt-auto-update.log
sudo apt-auto-update enable --hour 2	Same at 2:00
sudo apt-auto-update disable	Remove the /etc/cron.d/apt-auto-update fragment created by the tool
apt-auto-update status	Show whether scheduling is active

• Installing the package does not enable cron; run enable when you want it.
• apt remove: the generated cron entry is removed (debian/prerm).
• apt purge: apt-auto-update log files are removed (debian/postrm); the logrotate file is a normal Debian conffile.
• Logs stay plain text (no gzip) for easy reading.

Installed files

• /usr/bin/apt-auto-update
• /usr/lib/apt-auto-update/run-maintenance.sh
• /etc/logrotate.d/apt-auto-update → /var/log/apt-auto-update.log

License: GPL-3+ (see debian/copyright and LICENSE).

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For developers

Build the .deb

From the repository root:

./build-apt-auto-update.sh

Output:

• apt-auto-update_<version>_all.deb in the repository root (one level above the apt-auto-update/ source directory)

Prerequisites:

• build-essential, debhelper, fakeroot (provides dpkg-buildpackage and helpers)

Clone, build, and install locally

git clone https://github.com/phramusca/apt-auto-update.git
cd apt-auto-update
sudo apt install build-essential debhelper fakeroot
./build-apt-auto-update.sh
sudo apt install ./apt-auto-update_*_all.deb