How to install updates via command line?

Question

When I log into my web server via SSH I see the information:

88 packages can be updated.
80 updates are security updates

I tried apt-get update then apt-get upgrade but each time I log in I still see the message about updates. How do I install them?

Did you try this first: sudo apt-get clean this should clean the cache. — user2635584, Sep 20 '13 at 16:02

score 1116 · Answer 1 · edited Sep 11 '19 at 18:51

1116

Use this:

sudo apt update        # Fetches the list of available updates
sudo apt upgrade       # Installs some updates; does not remove packages
sudo apt full-upgrade  # Installs updates; may also remove some packages, if needed
sudo apt autoremove    # Removes any old packages that are no longer needed

Documentation about each apt option can be found in the the manpages for apt. These are also available by running man apt in your terminal.

Use of both upgrade and full-upgrade together is usually not needed, but it may help in some cases: see Debian documentation about Upgrades from Debian 9.

edited Sep 11 '19 at 18:51

Wayne

3

answered Oct 05 '12 at 14:05

SirCharlo

39,486

39

Should I always restart with sudo reboot after it? – hellboy Apr 09 '15 at 05:47
1

I needed to add -y for it to work. Ubuntu 17.10 – T04435 Feb 24 '18 at 21:21
6

@hellboy No need to every time. It will usually inform you if a reboot is required. – TheKarateKid Jun 12 '20 at 02:15
6

Just pointing out that apt full-upgrade performs the same function as apt-get dist-upgrade, if, like me, you're comparing the commands with other answers in this question. – kas Jul 31 '20 at 15:35
@hellboy It will tell you if a reboot is required. Also it's unclear whether you're asking if rebooting command line is required - the answer is No. It doesn't matter how you restart the machine. – Kellen Stuart Jan 20 '22 at 21:45
thank you for clarifying the difference between update upgrade and other commands. – Eakan Gopalakrishnan Jun 11 '23 at 11:02

Benny · Answer 2 · 2024-01-11T12:15:24.127

163

To install updates, Use:

sudo -s -- <<EOF
apt-get update
apt-get upgrade -y
apt-get full-upgrade -y
apt-get autoremove -y
apt-get autoclean -y
EOF

Or even shorter in a for loop (thanks @dessert!):

sudo bash -c 'for i in update {,full-}upgrade auto{remove,clean}; do apt-get $i -y; done'

edited Jan 11 '24 at 12:15

answered Nov 08 '16 at 09:28

Benny

4,920

Thank you for sharing the one-liner here @benny – Senior Systems Engineer Feb 14 '23 at 04:49

score 100 · Answer 3 · edited Jun 16 '15 at 13:50

100

This is normal behavior.

The message you see on login has been appended to the server status 'Message-Of-The-Day', which is only updated each calendar day (or on server boot / startup). Have a look at the contents, using

cat /etc/motd

Still seeing the same updates available, after running

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade

is to be expected. If you then re-run this command you will only be prompted for any further updates if even further (newer) updates have been released.

edited Jun 16 '15 at 13:50

dialogik

273

answered Oct 05 '12 at 20:26

david6

14,499

I'm noticing that any file changes in the whole system doesn't show until the next calendar day, is there a way for like "refresh" to start seeing changes right away? – 3lomahmed Feb 11 '16 at 07:24
Do you mean updates for the content of Message-Of-The-Day, or not getting what you want after running sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade ? – david6 Feb 11 '16 at 07:35
3

This is no longer true on 16.04. After "apt-get dist-upgrade" and a reboot I see "0 packages can be upgraded". – Bogdan Calmac Jun 24 '16 at 18:27
2

The '.. or on server reboot ..' statement above does cover that. – david6 Jun 24 '16 at 20:29
3

cat: /etc/motd: No such file or directory – xApple Jan 26 '17 at 19:17
This behaviour has clearly been changes, but needs more research .. – david6 Jan 26 '17 at 20:22
The last sentence of this answer makes no sense to me. "...you will only* be prompted for any further updates, even if further (newer) updates have been released." Should it perhaps read something like "...you will not be prompted for any further updates, unless even newer ones have been released since you last ran the command.*" – Jonathan Hartley Sep 27 '18 at 19:08
Currently this gets updated without restarting. – Tigerware Oct 31 '18 at 15:35

score 13 · Answer 4 · edited Sep 07 '14 at 22:31

13

Once your log into your server, run the command below.

sudo apt-get upgrade

It should do the trick. Maybe you just need to restart your server.

edited Sep 07 '14 at 22:31

Peter Mortensen

884

answered Oct 05 '12 at 13:46

NorTicUs

2,382

3

Thank you for your answer but I did try sudo apt-get upgrade. Restarting the server is out of the question because I have sites on it. – Marlin Oct 05 '12 at 14:04
3

if you installed an update that directly affects the kernel or it's a driver update or it's a critical security update, you need to restart the server. – Evandro Silva Oct 05 '12 at 14:11
Maybe you should consider an error 503 for a minute. Do you know what kind of update this is ? – NorTicUs Oct 05 '12 at 15:09
2

How can you give a 503 if the server is offline? – mcont Jan 12 '15 at 13:58

score 9 · Answer 5 · edited Sep 07 '14 at 22:55

9

In my case, I had an incorrect or not accessible URL in /etc/apt/sources.list. After removing this URL, I was able to update all packages successfully.

Commands:

sudo vi /etc/apt/sources.list
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade

edited Sep 07 '14 at 22:55

Peter Mortensen

884

answered Apr 20 '13 at 09:29

burtsevyg

302

Rmano · Answer 6 · 2016-04-19T16:39:33.183

8

My (really late, I like necromancer badges :-) ) solution:

Install wajig (once):
```
sudo apt-get install wajig 
```
When you want to update/upgrade fully your system
```
wajig dailyupgrade
```
(it will ask for password if needed, and do all the update, upgrade, dist-upgrade, and autoremove steps for you).

edited Apr 19 '16 at 16:39

answered Aug 26 '15 at 07:47

Rmano

31,947

score 4 · Answer 7 · edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:25

4

You may also need to do this -

sudo touch /etc/motd.tail

From - Ubuntu tells me I have packages to upgrade when I don't

It worked for me on 14.04

edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:25

Community

1

answered Oct 12 '14 at 02:22

John Behan

151
8

score 1 · Answer 8 · answered Aug 13 '14 at 11:27

1

If you run apt-get update again after apt-get upgrade has been concluded, those messages at ssh login should go away.

answered Aug 13 '14 at 11:27

Francisco Luz

130

Scott Stensland · Answer 9 · 2018-04-11T22:04:13.673

this script is handy to automate updates including removing unneeded packages and performing a reboot only if the OS wants one

remote_user=usernamehere
remote_host=example.com

ssh -A -n -o StrictHostKeyChecking=no ${remote_user}@${remote_host} && \
sudo apt-get update && \
sudo apt-get -f install -y && \
sudo apt-get -o Dpkg::Options::="--force-confnew" -yy dist-upgrade -y && \
sudo apt-get autoremove -y && \
[ -f /var/run/reboot-required ] && \
echo "sudo reboot now" && \
sudo reboot now

to run on your local box just leave off that first line doing the ssh

here is an alias I save in ~/.bashrc

alias doit='echo; kill $( ps -eafww|grep update-manager|grep -v grep | grep update-manager | tr -s " " |cut -d" "  -f2 ) > /dev/null 2>&1;  echo "sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade &&  [ -f /var/run/reboot-required ] && echo && echo reboot required && echo";echo;sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade &&  [ -f /var/run/reboot-required ] && echo && echo reboot required && echo '

then on terminal I just issue doit

How to install updates via command line?

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