this post was submitted on 29 Oct 2025
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Or asked the other way around: How long do you keep your servers running without installing any software updates?

update means something like

sudo dnf update

or something ....

apt-get upgrade
apt-get update
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[–] pHr34kY@lemmy.world 5 points 4 hours ago

Whenever I ssh into it.

[–] mjr@infosec.pub 45 points 15 hours ago

Those apt commands are in a less-good order. It's usually better to update apt, then upgrade the system.

I upgrade as soon as reasonably possible after the notification appears, if the system isn't on auto-upgrade.

[–] jbk@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 8 hours ago

podman quadlets with auto updates running on opensuse microos

im not yet self hosting a ton of services tho

[–] dust_accelerator@discuss.tchncs.de 29 points 14 hours ago (3 children)

Every night at ~ 12-1am

unattended updates / transactional-update are awesome.

Stuff has been running for years, and it's still up to date.

[–] southernbeaver@lemmy.world 18 points 14 hours ago

This guy scares me

[–] DasFaultier@sh.itjust.works 2 points 10 hours ago

This is the way! At least install security upgrades nightly using unattended-upgrades and reboot from time to time to get the latest Kernel version.

[–] gopher@programming.dev 2 points 10 hours ago

Once per week for me. Works really great on openSUSE MicroOS. Had to roll back maybe a couple of times the last few years.

That said, I run basically everything in containers so the OS installed things are lean.

[–] melfie@lemy.lol 3 points 9 hours ago

I run Ubuntu Server 24.04 LTS with k3s. I update my container versions every few months, though not everything I’m running all at once. I update the actual system packages via apt maybe once a year and end up nuking and re-installing everything every couple years on average. I deliberately block all inbound WAN traffic in my firewall and use k8s network policies to aggressively limit egress WAN connections because I’m aware that I’m bad about keeping things up to date.

[–] Evotech@lemmy.world 3 points 9 hours ago

Weekly. Cronjob.

[–] hexagonwin@lemmy.sdf.org 4 points 10 hours ago

maybe like once in 3 months. i usually update when i need to setup something new on the server that needs to install new packages.

[–] Dran_Arcana@lemmy.world 18 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

Unattended-upgrade does security-only patching once every 4 hours (in rough sync with my local mirror)

Full upgrades are done weekly, accompanied by a reboot

I find that the split between security patching and feature/bug patching maintains a healthy balance knowing when something is likely to break but never being behind on the latest cve.

[–] cenzorrll@piefed.ca 1 points 9 hours ago

For me, unattended-upgrade does it's thing. Updating other packages happens whenever I think about it. Very few things are not containerized and there's very little added beyond the base Debian install, so when I do update its maybe a dozen packages.

I would previously reboot during thunderstorms if we lost power, but now that I've got a UPS I probably ought to come up with a different plan.

[–] Sir_Kevin@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 11 hours ago

On Windows, almost never since it was a disruptive shitshow. Now that I've got everything running Linux it's weekly. Often sooner if I happen to be remoting in and manually update.

[–] CompactFlax@discuss.tchncs.de 11 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

When I remember. About once a month.

[–] spacelord@sh.itjust.works 3 points 12 hours ago* (last edited 12 hours ago) (1 children)

Same here. No auto updates, no touching of a stable system without my manual intervention. 😅

[–] CompactFlax@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 11 hours ago

Last thing I need in my life is a broken system at home when I don’t have time for it!

[–] sneezycat@sopuli.xyz 14 points 15 hours ago* (last edited 15 hours ago) (3 children)

Well, one of the reasons I'm using debian on my server is so I can kinda forget about it...

I'll update maybe once a month, or every couple months. I don't always restart though, so my kernel is probably a bit behind :'D

[–] eksb@programming.dev 6 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

I use Debian stable and subscribe to the debian-security-announce mailing list, so I update each time I get an email from it.

[–] amju_wolf@pawb.social 1 points 9 hours ago

This is the way. (At least for a server)

[–] atzanteol@sh.itjust.works 4 points 14 hours ago (7 children)

That's... Not how it works.. Debian is "stable" not "secure". You use Debian so that is easier to run updates frequently since they'll be unlikely to break things.

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[–] PlanterTree@discuss.tchncs.de 4 points 15 hours ago* (last edited 15 hours ago)

lol. Same issue for me. I run it for months, and surprisingly (for me) nothing breaks at all.

But fucking ssh shows warnings regarding some "post quantum crypto" stuff; recommending software update, that was not there before lol.

[–] MTK@lemmy.world 1 points 9 hours ago

Anything exposed to the internet gets a daily / weekly update, depending on how exposed it is, how stable the updates are and how critical a breach would be. For example nginx would be a daily update.

Anything behind a vpn gets a more random update schedule mostly based on when I feel like it (probably around once a month or every other month)

[–] slazer2au@lemmy.world 8 points 15 hours ago

Once a week. I have a bash script that does an apt update upgrade and pulls new docker images.

[–] ilco@feddit.nl 1 points 9 hours ago

Usely every 3/4 months roughly. I try to remeber to update. The base. Server. And docker based things! /webserices. I update. Sparingly. Every few new versions. As I am the only user of my server. I don't have a high need to update. So I update only if a new future. Is added or a mayor bug /security patch.

[–] suicidaleggroll@lemmy.world 2 points 11 hours ago

Every couple of days. I don't auto-update, but I've streamlined the process to the point that I can just open a single web page and see the number of pending updates for every system on my network, docker containers included, each one with a button. Clicking the button applies the update and reboots if necessary. So it takes about 15 seconds of effort to update everything, which is why I don't mind doing it so often.

[–] deleted@lemmy.world 4 points 14 hours ago

I do it every 3 to 5 days. I usually do it when I have time to fix things if it goes south.

[–] Luckyfriend222@lemmy.world 1 points 10 hours ago

First Friday of the month. Easy to remember.

[–] eager_eagle@lemmy.world 2 points 12 hours ago* (last edited 12 hours ago)

everyday to once a month, depending how often I use the server

IME usually waiting longer to apply larger updates causes more issues than smaller and more frequent ones

[–] lemming741@lemmy.world 3 points 14 hours ago

Probably every 2 months. When I have a day off work with nothing to do. I have a few VMs that are more fragile than I want to admit and if something breaks I want to have time to tinker instead of just restoring a backup.

[–] reseller_pledge609@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago)

I SSH in and run an update manually, once a week.

I'm not knowledgable and comfortable enough to let updates happen automatically and feel like I could trust it to keep running. Not yet, anyway.

Edit: But at some point I might do what another commenter said and make sure security updates run automatically and check other updates weekly.

[–] First_Thunder@lemmy.zip 3 points 14 hours ago

Using nix :P

I update the flake every now and then via nix flake updated and then do a rebuild

[–] Shimitar@downonthestreet.eu 3 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago)

Gentooer here. Emerge sync &; world daily at night.

Weekly a manual check for stuff that doesn't autoupdate for reasons.

Monthly / biweekly podman compose pull for containers. Manual, because i don't trust that kind of autoupdate.

Edit: opnSense updates are manual only when I remember because if it breaks, I must be at home to fix it or i lose remote access and that's bad.

[–] hydrian@twit.social 3 points 14 hours ago (2 children)

@PlanterTree Systems facing public internet, security updates are applied daily automatically.

[–] PlanterTree@discuss.tchncs.de 4 points 14 hours ago

up to now I install all my updates manually, maybe I should look into this: how to auto-update.

[–] Passerby6497@lemmy.world 2 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago) (1 children)

Can I ask how you do that? I have some debian and fedora boxes I should configure for that

[–] confusedpuppy@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

On Alpine Linux I update my two Pi servers at 2 in the morning daily. It's simpler compared to Debian which needs unattended-updates. Just add apk update && apk upgrade to a cron job and you're good to go.

I only have three docker services which is simple enough to update manually.

I like to keep things as simple as possible for my already chaotic brain.

[–] non_burglar@lemmy.world 2 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

Be careful with unattended upgrades, even on alpine. A recent breaking change in python3 broke my alpine 23 ansible instance. Thankfully I have backups, but if you're going to automate the upgrade, you should automate tests as well.

[–] confusedpuppy@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 11 hours ago

My web facing server has just enough packages installed to (kinda securely) host a Caddy and Kiwix docker container to work with my domain name and make a comfortable work environment through SSH. My Pi for my HomeAssistant docker container has less because it's locked down to just my local network.

I also wrote my own install scripts so reinstalling everything and getting it back to a running state would take about 15 minutes for each device.

And I also wrote my own backup/restore scripts that evolved over 3/4 of a year. I use them often so I have confidence in those scripts.

I personally don't really care too much. I have multiple ways of dealing with issues for something that's a hobby to me. Which is why I stick to simplicity.

I'm sure this is a thing for people to worry about when dealing with more complex setups. I just wanna vibe out in my tiny corner of the internet.

[–] snekerpimp@lemmy.world 2 points 13 hours ago

Almost everything I have runs Debian or NixOS, so…….. once a month? Except for VMs I’m playing around with, which usually get updated every time I log into them, or instal stuff.

[–] troed@fedia.io 2 points 14 hours ago

All services are dockerized, updated nightly.

Server OS runs a kernel-patch service for real time exploit patching.

All other updates as soon as they appear.

Yeah, sometimes I'll need to go in a repair - but that's way better than having to clean up after having been exploited due to not keeping up on security patches.

[–] illusionist@lemmy.zip 2 points 14 hours ago

On my ubuntu I use unattended updates but that doesn't work reliably. I have to update it manually most of the time. Once every other month.

On my fedora server it auto updates every day at 4 reliably.

The next server is going to be atomic such that the server restart is even shorter (not that I would care about it at 4).

[–] bjoern_tantau@swg-empire.de 2 points 14 hours ago

Automatic upgrades handle the security patches. Everything else maybe once a month. My big services like Nextcloud auto update as well.

[–] BCsven@lemmy.ca 1 points 12 hours ago

Depends, on how critical something is...since we deal with servers / customers at work that often are purposely not adjusted for years...because introducing a different behaviour (even if better) would grind production to a halt, I take a not careful approach.

I was using OpenSUSE Leap, and with zypper you can review which patches are available, whether they are critical or run recommended or not needed. You can then apply which specific patch you want be CVE if necessary.

But with Leap's path seaming messy at the moment, I moved to Tumbleweed, since you have snapshotying built in. If an update did mess something up you just rollback to the previous snapshot and in less than a minute it is fixed

[–] Kolanaki@pawb.social 2 points 14 hours ago

Mine is set to update all the stuff I use, and the OS, automatically whenever an update is available. 🤷‍♂️

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