How to set up Ubuntu and CentOS systems to email notifications when OS updates are available.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
You can use tool called apticron to notify you when new updates are available. It sends you e-mail about pending upgrades, also giving you a choice to only send you e-mail about updates not previously notified.<\/p>\n
To setup apticron edit \/etc\/apticron\/apticron.conf and change line containing e-mail address:<\/p>\n
EMAIL=”admin@example.com”
\nEnter the e-mail address you wish to receive notifications to.<\/p>\n
For more information see man apticron.<\/p>\n
Yum-Cron<\/p>\n
Yum-cron is a simple way to call yum commands from cron. It provides configuration to keep repository metadata up to date, and to check for, download, and apply updates.
\nInstall<\/p>\n
yum install yum-cron\n<\/pre>\nConfig Files:<\/p>\n
\/etc\/sysconfig\/yum-cron\n\/etc\/yum\/yum-daily.yum\n\/etc\/yum\/yum-weekly.yum\n\n<\/pre>\nCheck the files installed:<\/p>\n
rpm -ql yum-cron\n\/etc\/cron.daily\/0yum.cron\n\/etc\/rc.d\/init.d\/yum-cron\n\/etc\/sysconfig\/yum-cron\n\/etc\/yum\/yum-daily.yum\n\/etc\/yum\/yum-weekly.yum\n\/usr\/share\/doc\/yum-cron-3.2.29\n\/usr\/share\/doc\/yum-cron-3.2.29\/COPYING\n\/usr\/share\/man\/man8\/yum-cron.8.gz\n\n<\/pre>\nConfigure the service to start a boot:<\/p>\n
# chkconfig yum-cron on\n<\/pre>\nConfigure the service:<\/p>\n
# nano \/etc\/sysconfig\/yum-cron\n<\/pre>\n# Pass any given paramter to yum, as run in all the scripts invoked\n# by this package. Be aware that this is global, and yum is invoked in\n# several modes by these scripts for which your own parameter might not\n# be appropriate\nYUM_PARAMETER=\n\n# Don't install, just check (valid: yes|no)\nCHECK_ONLY=no\n\n# Check to see if you can reach the repos before updating (valid: yes|no)\nCHECK_FIRST=no\n\n# Don't install, just check and download (valid: yes|no)\n# Implies CHECK_ONLY=yes (gotta check first to see what to download)\nDOWNLOAD_ONLY=no\n\n# Error level, practical range 0-10, 0 means print only critical errors which\n# you must be told, 1 means print all errors, even ones that are not important\n# Level 0 is the default\n# ERROR_LEVEL=0\n\n# Debug level, practical range 0-10, higher number means more output\n# Level 1 is a useful level if you want to see what's been done and\n# don't want to read \/var\/log\/yum.log\n# Level 0 is the default\n# DEBUG_LEVEL=1\n\n# randomwait is used by yum to wait random time\n# default is 60 so yum waits random time from 1 to 60 minutes\n# the value must not be zero\nRANDOMWAIT="60"\n\n# if MAILTO is set and the mail command is available, the mail command\n# is used to deliver yum output\n\n# by default MAILTO is unset, so crond mails the output by itself\n# example: MAILTO=root\nMAILTO=admin@mydomain.com\n\n# you may set SYSTEMNAME if you want your yum emails tagged differently\n# default is output of hostname command\n# this variable is used only if MAILTO is set too\n#SYSTEMNAME=""\n\n# you may set DAYS_OF_WEEK to the days of the week you want to run\n# default is every day\n#DAYS_OF_WEEK="0123456"\n\n# which day should it do cleanup on? defaults to 0 (Sunday). If this day isn't in the\n# DAYS_OF_WEEK above, it'll never happen\nCLEANDAY="0"\n\n# set to yes to make the yum-cron service to wait for transactions to complete\nSERVICE_WAITS=yes\n\n# set maximum time period (in seconds) for the yum-cron service to wait for\n# transactions to complete. The default is 300 seconds (5 minutes)\nSERVICE_WAIT_TIME=300\n\n<\/pre>\nEdit \/etc\/sysconfig\/yum-cron (CentOS 6) to set MAILTO= email address or \/etc\/yum\/yum-cron.conf (CentOS 7) to set email_to= for email notifications. If you use pushover.net for notifications to your mobile or tablet device, you can set<\/p>\n
For CentOS 6<\/p>\n
MAILTO=yourUSERkey+devicename+p1@api.pushover.net\n\n<\/pre>\nFor CentOS 7<\/p>\n
email_to=yourUSERkey+devicename+p1@api.pushover.net\n\n<\/pre>\nFor CentOS 7 whether or not if updates are applied are controlled by 3 variables in \/etc\/yum\/yum-cron.conf or \/etc\/yum\/yum-cron-hourly.conf both have the 3 variables disabled = no by default. Need to change them to yes.<\/p>\n
# Whether a message should emitted when updates are available.\nupdate_messages = no\n\n# Whether updates should be downloaded when they are available. Note\n# that updates_messages must also be yes for updates to be downloaded.\ndownload_updates = no\n\n# Whether updates should be applied when they are available. Note\n# that both update_messages and download_updates must also be yes for\n# the update to be applied\napply_updates = no\n\n<\/pre>\nAlso for CentOS 7, messages either go to stdio or email, default is stdio so for emails set emit_via = email<\/pre>\n# How to send messages. Valid options are stdio and email. If\n# emit_via includes stdio, messages will be sent to stdout; this is useful\n# to have cron send the messages. If emit_via includes email, this\n# program will send email itself according to the configured options.\n# If emit_via is None or left blank, no messages will be sent.\nemit_via = stdio\n\n<\/pre>\nFor CentOS 7, using sed replacements to enable yum-cron settings. This sets daily updates for full yum upgrades and hourly to security only updates.<\/p>\n
EMAIL=your@email.com\n sed -i "s|^email_to = root|email_to = ${EMAIL}|" \/etc\/yum\/yum-cron.conf\n sed -i 's|^update_messages = no|update_messages = yes|' \/etc\/yum\/yum-cron.conf\n sed -i 's|^download_updates = no|download_updates = yes|' \/etc\/yum\/yum-cron.conf\n sed -i 's|^apply_updates = no|apply_updates = yes|' \/etc\/yum\/yum-cron.conf\n sed -i 's|^emit_via = stdio|emit_via = email|' \/etc\/yum\/yum-cron.conf\n sed -i "s|^email_to = root|email_to = ${EMAIL}|" \/etc\/yum\/yum-cron-hourly.conf\n sed -i 's|^update_cmd = default|update_cmd = security|' \/etc\/yum\/yum-cron-hourly.conf\n sed -i 's|^update_messages = no|update_messages = yes|' \/etc\/yum\/yum-cron-hourly.conf\n sed -i 's|^download_updates = no|download_updates = yes|' \/etc\/yum\/yum-cron-hourly.conf\n sed -i 's|^apply_updates = no|apply_updates = yes|' \/etc\/yum\/yum-cron-hourly.conf\n sed -i 's|^emit_via = stdio|emit_via = email|' \/etc\/yum\/yum-cron-hourly.conf \n egrep '^email_to|^update_messages|^download_updates|^apply_updates|^emit_via' \/etc\/yum\/yum-cron.conf\n egrep '^email_to|^update_cmd|^update_messages|^download_updates|^apply_updates|^emit_via' \/etc\/yum\/yum-cron-hourly.conf\n\n<\/pre>\n# service yum-cron restart\n\n<\/pre>\nFor CentOS 7 also has an hourly configuration file at \/etc\/yum\/yum-cron-hourly.conf<\/p>\n
# service yum-cron start\n\n<\/pre>\nCron Job:<\/p>\n
You can set up a cron job as well without adding a package.
\nset up the scrip to run:<\/p>\n# nano \/usr\/local\/bin\/yumcheck\n<\/pre>\nAdd the following:<\/p>\n
#! \/bin\/sh\n\nUPDATES=$(yum check-update --quiet | grep -v "^$")\nUPDATES_COUNT=$(echo $UPDATES | wc -l)\n\nif [[ $UPDATES_COUNT -gt 0 ]]; then\n echo $UPDATES | mail -s "Updates for $(hostname): ${UPDATES_COUNT}" you@yourdomain.com\nfi\n<\/pre>\nMake executable:<\/p>\n
# chmod +x \/usr\/local\/bin\/yumcheck\n<\/pre>\nSet up the cron job:<\/p>\n
# nano \/etc\/cron.d\/yumcheck\n<\/pre>\nAdd the following to run daily:<\/p>\n
# Cronjob to check yum nightly\n30 0 * * * root \/usr\/local\/bin\/yumcheck\n<\/pre>\nSet up Mail:<\/p>\n
# yum -y install mailx\n<\/pre>\nTest:<\/p>\n
# echo "Message Body" | mail -s "Email From MAILX" email@yourdomain.com\n<\/pre>\nOther resources:
\nhttp:\/\/samdoran.com\/automatic-updates-in-rhel-6-and-cent-os-6\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"How to set up Ubuntu and CentOS systems to email notifications when OS updates are available.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3404","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-administration"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qbytes.cloud\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3404","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qbytes.cloud\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qbytes.cloud\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qbytes.cloud\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qbytes.cloud\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3404"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.qbytes.cloud\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3404\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qbytes.cloud\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qbytes.cloud\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3404"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qbytes.cloud\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}