[ubuntu-za] Scheduled Update

[Neil Muller]

On Mon, Nov 03, 2008 at 04:08:09PM +0200, Tim Johnson wrote:
> Can an expert please help me...
> My ISP (Cybersmart) offers a discount on cap after 01:00 so I'd like to  
> schedule updates & downloads for after that time.
> Using cron or gnome-scheduler is fine except that I don't know how to  
> either enter my password or run the task as root while I'm asleep.

Since there is already a cronjob (/etc/cron.daily/apt) which by default
downloads the packages list, I suggest playing with the APT::Periodic 
options to tweak that script to do what you want.

You probably want to change either
APT::Periodic::Download-Upgradeable-Packages or
APT::Periodic::Unattended-Upgrade . See the apt cron script for more
details.

Note that, in the default setup, the /etc/cron.daily jobs are run via
anacron, and the default time is 7:30 (see /etc/cron.d/anacron). You
probably will want to change it to run earlier if using either of the
above options.

-- 
Neil Muller  email: neil at dip.sun.ac.za 

Division Applied Mathematics, Department of Mathematical Sciences
University of Stellenbosch