1. NAME

unattended-upgrade - automatic installation of security (and other) upgrades

2. SYNOPSIS

unattended-upgrade [options]

3. DESCRIPTION

This program can download and install security upgrades automatically and unattended, taking care to only install packages from the configured APT source, and checking for dpkg prompts about configuration file changes. All output is logged to /var/log/unattended-ugprades.log.

This script is the backend for the APT::Periodic::Unattended-Upgrade option and designed to be run from cron (e.g. via /etc/cron.daily/apt).

4. OPTIONS

unattended-upgrade accepts the following options

  • -h, --help
        help output
  • -d, --debug
        extra debug output into /var/log/unattended-upgrades.log
  • --dry-run
        Just simulate installing updates, do not actually do it

5. CONFIGURATION

The configuration is done via the apt configuration mechanism, the default configuration file can be found at /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/50unattended-upgrades

6. AUTHORS

unattended-upgrade is written by Michael Vogt <>

This manual page was originally written by Michael Vogt <>

7. COPYRIGHT

Copyright (C) 2005-2009 Canonical

There is NO warranty. You may redistribute this software under the terms of the GNU General Public License. For more information about these matters, see the files named COPYING.