bug#36659: There should be an unattended upgrades service

bug#36659: There should be an unattended upgrades service

[pelzflorian (Florian Pelz)]

Some users (want to) forget about regularly upgrading Guix System.
There should be an unattended upgrades service.  Some requirements
come to mind for its configuration:

1) Some users may want their unattended upgrades service to take care
just of reconfiguring from a recent checkout and some may want it to
take care of updating users’ ~/.config/guix/current and ~/guix-profile
profiles.

2) Maybe there should be libnotify integration for unattended
upgrades if the user uses a desktop environment.

3) Updates may fail if there is no internet connection.  Some users
may *not* want upgrades on metered internet connections.  Some users
may *not* want upgrades over untrusted connections.

This report is a followup to Ludo’s proposal at
<https://issues.guix.gnu.org/issue/36636> to add such a service and
add it to %desktop-services, making it the default setting.  Such a
change in defaults could be a bad surprise for some users and should
not go unnoticed, I think.

Regards,
Florian

bug#36659: There should be an unattended upgrades service

[Matthew Brooks]

If an automatic updater is included by default (which I think would be a rather bad idea), it absolutely needs to be very easy for a user to disable.
GuixSD gives users a hell of a lot more control over the system and software and such than most other operating systems do, and that's a great strength. Leaving all those decisions in the hands of an automatic updating algorithm seems like a great way to discourage users from actually using the full power of the system and instead treat guix as just another generic distribution that decides things for the users instead of letting them decide for themselves. Especially since guix already lets the user know if it's older than about a week or so, which is probably plenty for anything other than the most demanding of security needs.
Further, an automatic upgrade service wouldn't really add anything useful, since cron jobs and scripts can already be used to automate upgrading if one so desires. Additionally, anyone who is able to install the system to begin with would easily be able to set up such a cron job if they wish, since creating the system config file takes more work than making a small bash script with the few commands needed to update everything.

bug#36659: There should be an unattended upgrades service

[Ricardo Wurmus]

Hi Matthew,

> If an automatic updater is included by default (which I think would be
> a rather bad idea), it absolutely needs to be very easy for a user to
> disable.

Of course.  It would be as simple as removing a service from the list of
default system services in the operating system configuration.

> Further, an automatic upgrade service wouldn't really add anything
> useful, since cron jobs and scripts can already be used to automate
> upgrading if one so desires.

I disagree.  We provide a whole lot of services that aren’t strictly
necessary in order to satisfy what we think are reasonable user
expectations.  An upgrade service that’s easily removed or configured
seems nicer to me than having to muck about with cron jobs and scripts
by myself.

--
Ricardo

bug#36659: There should be an unattended upgrades service

[Arne Babenhauserheide]

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Ricardo Wurmus <rekado@elephly.net> writes:

>> Further, an automatic upgrade service wouldn't really add anything
>> useful, since cron jobs and scripts can already be used to automate
>> upgrading if one so desires.
>
> I disagree.  We provide a whole lot of services that aren’t strictly
> necessary in order to satisfy what we think are reasonable user
> expectations.  An upgrade service that’s easily removed or configured
> seems nicer to me than having to muck about with cron jobs and scripts
> by myself.

I would most of all like to see a CVE-checking service that tells me
about security updates. Sometimes I’ll ignore updates for a few weeks
because I have a setup that absolutely must keep working, because I
could not even afford half an hour of brokenness, but I must still do
security updates, and I would like Guix to tell me about those.

Also it would be interesting to have an auto-update service that only
updates /run/current-system

That way users would only have to worry about their personal
installations, but not about the underlying base-system. I think there
are many users who would be most happy if they never had to sudo.

Best wishes,
Arne
-- 
Unpolitisch sein
heißt politisch sein
ohne es zu merken

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bug#36659: There should be an unattended upgrades service

[pelzflorian (Florian Pelz)]

This is just my opinions/ideas:

On Tue, Jul 16, 2019 at 02:29:07AM -0500, Matthew Brooks wrote:
> If an automatic updater is included by default (which I think would
> be a rather bad idea), it absolutely needs to be very easy for a
> user to disable.

Guix System should target non-power users too.  It is already much
easier to install packages and services than in Debian, especially if
no sudo were ever needed as Arne wrote in his reply.

Perhaps if the unattended upgrades service were not included in
%desktop-services but selectable in the Guix System graphical
installer and selected by default, users would feel more in control
and existing users would not be surprised.

If unattended-upgrades-service-type checked with NetworkManager for
metered connections *and* if substitutes are available *and* the power
user can configure a blacklist/whitelist of trusted connections, the
only downside I see is less internet bandwidth during upgrades and
slightly more battery drain, but security is more important and the
more responsible default.

Maybe make it configurable if upgrades should be performed when on
battery.

Maybe users could stop an upgrade via libnotify notification?

On Tue, Jul 16, 2019 at 03:23:35PM +0200, Arne Babenhauserheide wrote:
> I would most of all like to see a CVE-checking service that tells me
> about security updates. Sometimes I’ll ignore updates for a few weeks
> because I have a setup that absolutely must keep working, because I
> could not even afford half an hour of brokenness, but I must still do
> security updates, and I would like Guix to tell me about those.
>

A CVE notification service would be right for %desktop-services, I
think.

Regards,
Florian

bug#36659: There should be an unattended upgrades service

[Ludovic Courtès]

Hi,

Arne Babenhauserheide <arne_bab@web.de> skribis:

> Also it would be interesting to have an auto-update service that only
> updates /run/current-system

Yes, that’s what we’re talking about here, or at least what I had in
mind.  :-)

Ludo’.

bug#36659: There should be an unattended upgrades service

[Tobias Geerinckx-Rice via Bug reports for GNU Guix]

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One was added by Ludo' in commit 
79501f26ab6d82c0256ff786a5dfb0000b52ccd3.

The unrelated (CVE) or enhancement (NM integration) suggestions 
upthread are separate topics.  Closing!

Kind regards,

T G-R

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