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APTITUDE-ROBOT-SESSION(8) User Commands APTITUDE-ROBOT-SESSION(8)

NAME

aptitude-robot-session - call aptitude-robot non-interactively

SYNOPSIS

aptitude-robot-session

DESCRIPTION

aptitude-robot-session is a helper script meant to be run from cron or init scripts. It will call aptitude-robot with some options suitable for non-interactive use. It will also redirect all output (STDERR and STDOUT) to LOGFILE defined in "/etc/default/aptitude-robot".

CONFIGURATION

There are a few configuration options that can be defined in "/etc/default/aptitude-robot".

the name of the file where all the output of aptitude-robot is collected. Defaults to "/var/log/aptitude-robot.log"
the name of the file where the session log is accumulated. aptitude-robot-session will append its PID to this file in order not to overwrite a log file left over from a crashed earlier invocation. If aptitude-robot-session finishes properly it will append the session log to LOGFILE and delete the session log.
optional command invoked with the session log as the only argument at the end of an aptitude-robot-session run. This can be used to file reports to monitoring systems or support mail addresses.
file size limit in blocks for the session log. This prevents endless loops if a package installation continues to ask the same question for which no terminal is available to provide an answer.

But be aware that this limit also affects _all_ daemons started or restarted during the aptitude-robot-session run, including e.g. the OpenSSH daemon which again will propagate the limit to its remote login sessions. Use with care.

a command that is run at the end of a successful aptitude-robot-session. E.g., use it for apt-get clean.

EXIT STATUS

aptitude-robot-session exits with 0 on success, 1 if dpkg is locked, 2 if apt failed to fetch some APT repositories.

BUGS

The non-interactive nature of aptitude-robot-session may trigger the condition reported in https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/aptitude/+bug/257279

SEE ALSO

aptitude-robot(8), aptitude(8)

AUTHORS

Elmar S. Heeb <elmar@heebs.ch> and Axel Beckert <abe@debian.org>

2024-05-26 1.5.5