One thing I have learned with shell scripting is that it’s a wonderful tool to use for automation. What I mean by that is that it’s perfect for promoting less typing. My touch typing has improved over the years so much that I can type pretty fast, however, I make errors and the less I type the better. With that being said, here are the scripts I run on my machines each day when I first login to complete updates:
Fedora/Korora
#!/bin/bash # Script to check for updates on Fedora, update, and then reboot if # the kernel was updated rm -f $HOME/updates.txt echo clear echo " ========== " echo echo " Checking for updates... " echo sudo dnf check-update echo sleep 2 echo " Do you want to update the machine? (yes/no) " read UPREPLY if [ "$UPREPLY" == "yes" ]; then echo echo "*** Updating ***" sleep 2 echo sudo dnf update -y | tee -a $HOME/updates.txt sleep 3 elif [ "$UPREPLY" == "no" ]; then echo echo "--- Will not update ---" sleep 2 exit 0 else echo echo "invalid answer, type yes or no"; fi echo echo "*** Updates have been applied ***" echo echo "*** Here is a list of the updates ***" sleep 3 clear echo " ========== " echo cat $HOME/updates.txt | more echo sleep 5 echo " ========== " grep "kernel" $HOME/updates.txt echo sleep 5 read -p " Press [Enter] to continue " rm -f $HOME/updates.txt clear # **************** REBOOTS SECTION ******************* echo echo "^^^ Do you want to reboot the machine? (yes/no) ^^^" read REPLY if [ "$REPLY" == "yes" ]; then echo echo "*** WARNING: You have selected to reboot ***" sleep 3 sudo shutdown -r +1 Rebooting in 1 minutes elif [ "$REPLY" == "no" ]; then echo echo "--- machine will not reboot ---" sleep 3 exit 0 else echo echo "invalid answer, type yes or no"; fi sleep 3
With the above script, basically, it checks for updates, logs it to a text file, reads the text file, points out the keyword “kernel” and then ask if you want to reboot . If it finds that there is a kernel update then my normal practice is to reboot. If there is no kernel update I don’t reboot.
Ubuntu
#!/bin/bash # Script to check for updates on Fedora, update, and then reboot if # the kernel was updated rm -f $HOME/updates.txt echo clear echo " ========== " echo echo " Checking for updates... " echo sudo apt update && sudo apt list --upgradable echo echo " ========== " sleep 3 echo echo " Do you want to update the machine? (yes/no) " read UPREPLY if [ "$UPREPLY" == "yes" ]; then echo echo "*** Updating ***" sleep 2 echo sudo apt upgrade -y | tee -a $HOME/updates.txt sleep 3 elif [ "$UPREPLY" == "no" ]; then echo echo "--- Will not update ---" sleep 2 exit 0 else echo echo "invalid answer, type yes or no"; fi echo echo "*** Updates have been applied ***" echo echo "*** Here is a list of the updates ***" sleep 3 clear echo " ========== " echo cat $HOME/updates.txt | more echo sleep 5 echo " ========== " grep "linux-headers" $HOME/updates.txt echo sleep 5 read -p " Press [Enter] to continue " rm -f $HOME/updates.txt sudo apt autoremove clear # **************** REBOOTS SECTION ******************* echo echo "^^^ Do you want to reboot the machine? (yes/no) ^^^" read REPLY if [ "$REPLY" == "yes" ]; then echo echo "*** WARNING: You have selected to reboot ***" sleep 3 sudo shutdown -r +1 Rebooting in 1 minutes elif [ "$REPLY" == "no" ]; then echo echo "--- machine will not reboot ---" sleep 3 exit 0 else echo echo "invalid answer, type yes or no"; fi sleep 3
Another option with this is to not make the script interactive and just add to a crontab to schedule updates a couple times a week and reboot. Of course, you would have to remember when that reboot is supposed to take place and make sure you have no unsaved work kept on your machine before that scheduled reboot.
Part 2 of this series I will post some scripts I use to remotely update my servers at work.
Ordinary Man 