THIS ROLE IS DEPRECATED: Rationale & Alternatives

[jnv]

Unfortunately I don't have time nor motivation to maintain this role anymore, so with this I announce that the jnv.unattended-upgrades role is deprecated.

This probably doesn't come as a surprise with multiple unanswered issues and pull requests. I originally hoped to finish the migration to v2.0 of this role with #32, but with the closure of Travis CI I have lost the testing setup. And since I don't use this role myself anymore (nor Ansible), I don't have any confidence in pushing changes to this role.

I appreciate all the time you spent with your contributions and I am sorry if your PR wasn't accepted.

What's next?

I have pushed one last update with link to this issue in the README and marked the role as deprecated in Galaxy.

I won't be accepting pull requests and bug reports, but I won't archive the repository to keep this issue open for comments.

I would like to collect alternatives and significant forks of this role in this issue. Please, comment with your recommendations – especially for roles with a migration path from this role!

Unresolved issues and pull requests

The following issues remain unresolved with this role:

• Override configuration in a separate apt.conf.d file #32 and Moved configuration into a new file that doesn't overwrite default settings #66
• some variables do not exist when 'gather_facts' is set to no #46
• Remove update-notifier-common installation #47 and Remove update-notifier-common. #85
• Add support for Allowed-Origins (used by default in Ubuntu 18.04) #53 and Add support of new syntax Allowed-Origins #59
• Extend functionality to apt-listchanges #57
• Missing Unattended-Upgrade::Sender parameter #63
• [Feature Request] Use force_apt_get #64
• Upgrade conflict in /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/50unattended-upgrades #68
• APT::Periodic::Enable not set #78
• Default configuration should use AllowedOrigins in Ubuntu #82
• New versions missing on ansible galaxy #89
• [Feature Request] role variables: unattended_dev_release, unattended_remove_unused_kernel_packages #91
• shellcheck errors in test.sh #94 and Fix deprecation warning #92
• Ability to Specify Patch Install Time with Systemd #97
• Update syntax for Ansible 2.4 #40
• Add support for setting apt-listchanges "which" items #58
• Suppress blank template lines #83
• Testing with Molecule #84

Alternative roles

Check out the maintained fork of this role by @hifis-net: https://github.com/hifis-net/ansible-role-unattended-upgrades (hifis.unattended_upgrades on Galaxy).

Other roles with similar purpose (I haven't tested them, but they seem actively maintained and popular):

• https://galaxy.ansible.com/weareinteractive/apt
• https://galaxy.ansible.com/geerlingguy/security

Further recommendations are welcome, especially if they provide a migration path from this role.

[lonix1]

Thanks for maintaining it up to now.

If you don't use Ansible any longer, what do you use?

[jnv]

If you don't use Ansible any longer, what do you use?

I didn't move to greener pastures, I just don't manage servers anymore. 🙂

[lonix1]

That sounds to me like moving to greener pastures! 😉

[Normo]

Thank you very much @jnv!

As a HIFIS Software team member I'm happy to tell you that we already created a fork for this project. As we are actively using the role in our projects, we will continue the development and maintenance of this role. It is available in the Ansible Galaxy and can be installed via this command:

$ ansible-galaxy install hifis.unattended_upgrades

Feel free to open issues or pull requests!

[jnv]

Thanks @Normo, that's great news! I have added it to the first post and linked it from the readme.

[jnv]

Since we have an official replacement now, I think it's time to archive this repo. So long, and thanks for all the fish!