auter - Man Page
Automatic Update Transaction Execution by Rackspace
Synopsis
auter [--enable|--disable|--status] [--prep] [--apply] [--reboot] [--postreboot] [--config=<configfile>] [Options]
Description
Automatic Update Transaction Execution by Rackspace. A wrapper around cron and yum/dnf/apt to manage system updates with the ability to configure automatic reboots and custom scripts.
Actions
- --enable
Enable auter
- --disable
Disable auter. Also deletes unused pidfile if it exists
- --status
Show whether enabled or disabled
- --prep
Pre-download updates before applying
- --apply
Apply updates, and reboot if AUTOREBOOT=yes
- --reboot
Reboot system including pre/post reboot scripts
- --postreboot
Run post reboot script
Options
- --config=FILE
- Specify the full path to an auter config file. Defaults to /etc/auter/auter.conf
- --stdout
Always log to STDOUT, regardless of not having a tty
- --maxdelay
Override MAXDELAY from the command line
- --skip-all-scripts
- Skip the executions of all custom scripts (Default in /etc/auter/*.d/)
- --skip-scripts-by-phase=PHASE
- Skip the execution of the custom scripts for the specified phase. You can specify myltiple phases.
Valid Phases: pre-prep, post-prep, pre-apply, post-apply, pre-reboot, post-reboot.
Example: --skip-scripts-by-phase="pre-prep,post-apply,pre-reboot"
- --skip-scripts-by-name=SCRIPTNAME
- Skip specific scripts by name. You can specify myltiple phases.
Example: --skip-scripts-by-name="10-configsnap-pre, 20-startApp.sh"
- --no-wall
If possible, suppress shutdown wall messages in the reboot phase
- -h, --help
Show this help text
- -v, --version
- Show the version
Directories
Default Directory locations are listed below; custom paths can be specified in the config file. The use of additional, non-default, config files is required when running more than one auter profile.
Pre/Post Hooks
If any scripts in the pre/post hook directories are not executable, they will be skipped by auter and a warning containing the filename will be logged. If any scripts in the pre/post hook directories exit with a non-zero exit code an error will be logged with the filename and exit code, and auter will abort.
- /etc/auter/pre-prep.d
Directory containing scripts to be executed before downloading updates
- /etc/auter/post-prep.d
Directory containing scripts to be executed after downloading updates
- /etc/auter/pre-apply.d
Directory containing scripts to be executed before applying updates
- /etc/auter/post-apply.d
Directory containing scripts to be executed after applying updates
- /etc/auter/pre-reboot.d
Directory containing scripts to be executed before rebooting
- /etc/auter/post-reboot.d
Directory containing scripts to be executed after rebooting
There is a hard coded delay of 5 minutes post-reboot to allow the system to become fully ready before the post-reboot scripts are executed.
Hook Execution Order
Files in the pre/post script directories are parsed in sorted lexical order. That is, /etc/auter/pre-apply.d/01_first will be parsed before /etc/auter/pre-apply.d/10_second. Be aware that because the sorting is lexical, not numeric, /etc/auter/pre-apply.d/1_whoops would be loaded after /etc/pre-apply.d/10_second. Using a consistent number of leading zeroes in the file names can be used to avoid such problems. For example the following execution order would occur for pre-apply scripts:
pre-apply.d/00-first.sh pre-apply.d/99-second.sh pre-apply.d/AA-fourth.sh pre-apply.d/aa-third.sh pre-apply.d/zz-fifth.sh pre-apply.d/ZZ-sixth.sh
Note that the ordering is case-insensitive so AA-fourth.sh will be run before aa-third.sh.
Enable/Disable
To provide an easy way to switch on/off all auter jobs, use auter --enable or auter --disable to set the lockfile /var/lib/auter/enabled. Auter will check for the presence of this file before running.
This is also the correct method for cleaning up an unused pidfile.
Rebooting
Rebooting is an essential part of applying updates, in order to ensure the updated packages are in use. An update to the kernel will always need a reboot. Some application updates, for example Apache, will restart the service. However often libraries are updated, such as openssl, which don't force a reboot of services that use them. Rebooting guarantees that every update is in use by running services. You can either enable AUTOREBOOT=yes in the config file (the default is AUTOREBOOT=no), to reboot after --apply, or you can schedule a separate schedule for --reboot via a second cronjob. A 2 minute warning is emitted before the server is rebooted, and this can be cancelled by a superuser with shutdown -c.
Exit Codes
0 = updates successful / no updates available
3 = issue related to yum / dnf / apt-get command
4 = auter disabled via lockfile
5 = script not run as root / DATADIR does not exist / config file does not exist
6 = auter is already running / PIDFILE exists
7 = yum, dnf or apt-get was not found
8 = a pre/post hook exited with a non-zero error code
Authors
- This documentation was primarily written by:
Paolo Gigante
Piers Cornwell
Cameron Beere
Files
- /etc/auter/auter.conf
Default config file location. Use the --config option to pass an alternative config file to use within /etc/auter.
- /etc/cron.d/auter
The default cron file with examples
- /usr/bin/auter
The main auter script which contains linux generic code
- /usr/lib/auter/auter.module
The auter module for the relevant package manager
- /usr/share/doc/auter-0.11/LICENSE
The Apache License
- /usr/share/doc/auter-0.11/MAINTAINERS.md
A list of maintainers and mailing list
- /usr/share/doc/auter-0.11/NEWS
The NEWS file and changelog for auter
Reporting Bugs
- Please report any bugs by raising an issue against the github page or email us at:
https://github.com/rackerlabs/auter/issues
auter-devel@rackspace.com