The question is, should the update work be done daily?

1st Official Post

    I am using OpenMediaVault5 with Lenovo ThinkServer-TS150.

    The question is, should the update work be done daily?

    We are developing a comprehensive system including a personal computer with OMV5 installed.

    If you sell this comprehensive system to users,

    In most cases, the end user will not be able to perform maintenance such as OMV updates.


    It is difficult for these end users to update OMV5 daily.


    Once a year, or about once every six months,

    When renewing the contract

    It is possible for us to update.


    How often is the OMV5 update appropriate?


    For small-scale OMV5 end-user PCs that cannot be connected via VPN, etc.

    It cannot be easily accessed from the outside.


    With OMV confidence or Debian OS cron,

    Is there a way to update automatically?

    • Official Post

    I usually update close to daily. I come home from work in the morning, I sit down to eat breakfast and fire up the laptop.. surf the news a bit and usually just SSH my server, install any updates, and move any torrents that have completed downloading.


    once that is done, I hit the rack, turn the TV on and stream something from the server till I fall asleep.


    So while I do this at least 4-5 times a week, that really doesn't seem necessary... I would (at bare minimum) update once a week.

    Debian has several tools to update the system automatically: e.g. cron-apt or unattended-upgrades. But Debian stable doesn't change often. There are frequent point releases (10.7, 10.8, etc.) and there are if course security updates which are released as soon as they are ready. Debian stable is IMHO usually a low maintenance system.

    I created a scheduled job in omv that runs weekly that runs the command: omv-update

    Been like this for a while now with no issues.


    I also run watchtower weekly to update my containers and that have been working just fine.


    I think lots of ppl are overthinking how to update and when, keep it simple and you will do just fine.


    Make sure you align a backup/restore strategy that that work in tandem with you updates so that IF something really bad happens there is a way out. Like I do a full backup of everything Monday night and let updates run Tuesday morning.

    • Official Post
    Quote from ohtanz

    Once a year, or about once every six months,

    When renewing the contract

    It is possible for us to update.

    OK, if you're not on-site, can't get there quickly, and don't want call outs, you might give the following some thought:

    The only time I've seen a Linux server crap out is when the server's boot media begins to fail (OR) when it gets a bad update. The core OS (Linux) files are usually never at fault. On the other hand, when Server add on's are updated, I've seen issues more than once.

    So, if these servers are straight forward file servers, without complicated add-ons, automating updates could be done. Still, you might want to set the schedule for once a week, on Monday or Tuesday. (Getting called out over the weekend wouldn't be good.) If they're connected to the net, it wouldn't hurt to get the job output e-mailed to you.


    On the other hand, if you have something like Urbackup or other complex server add on's installed AND there's no way to remote in (no Internet connection) or to get there quickly, I'd consider updating them once every 6 months on site. And I would backup the boot media before updating. It would be good to be able to back quickly out of a surprise.

    Just some thoughts.

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