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  • How to get an email notification every time a package is updated upstre

    From B@21:1/5 to All on Sun Jun 30 04:30:01 2024
    My objective is to get an email notification when an update is available
    for a specific Debian package.

    It sounds simple. Something like this should already exist, right? The requirements are trivial. Yet after doing a lot of research I can't find
    an existing solution that doesn't have problems.

    Does anyone have any suggestions or input?

    Below is all extra info and research I did.



    Let's identify my requirements:

    The notification method I want is email, but I would consider other
    things since I could probably easily convert it to a mail with a script.

    The packages I want to monitor are arbitrary and specific. The
    distribution and architecture must also be taken into account. For a
    given package, if I want to know about changes in unstable, then it must
    not generate notifications against stable, experimental, source, or some
    other architecture.



    Research and existing solutions:

    When researching, I found the following tools which are related or might
    be useful, but unfortunately I disqualified everything because it didn't
    meet my requirements.

    Obviously we want to get as close to the authoritative source of truth
    as possible. This means it would be preferred to get the notification
    sent by Debian infrastructure. So the first thing I looked at was
    tracker and the Debian mailing lists. Unfortunately, they don't do what
    I want. The problem is that these are dev-oriented, not user-oriented. Notifications/NEWS occurs when source/uploads get accepted, not when
    built packages are released to the FTP servers.

    The new Tracker system: https://tracker.debian.org

    The old tracker, which is no longer working, but it's noteworthy: https://packages.qa.debian.org/ (https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2002/01/msg00011.html)

    The Debian mailing lists:
        https://lists.debian.org/debian-changes/
        https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-changes/
        https://lists.debian.org/debian-security-announce/

    Packages/tools:

        unattended-upgrades
            might have some tools
     https://serverfault.com/questions/970136/how-do-i-make-unattended-upgrades-email-me-every-time-it-runs

        apticron
            https://packages.debian.org/sid/apticron
     https://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/apt-get-apticron-send-email-upgrades-available/
            Lots of downsides
                The package must be installed on a local system
                    Only notifies on packages installed on the system where
    apticron is installed
                It requires the local package list to be updated regularly
                    unless you run some custom cache dir or container

        cron-apt
            Related, but does not do notifications
     https://www.debuntu.org/how-to-email-notification-upon-available-package-updates-with-cron-apt/

        package-update-indicator
            This is a GUI package

    Other stuff:

    https://serverfault.com/questions/226340/debian-automatic-notification-of-updates
        apt-get -qq update && apt-get -dqq dist-upgrade && apt-get -qq --simulate dist-upgrade | grep ^Inst

    https://superuser.com/questions/1062534/debian-how-to-get-notified-when-packages-for-dist-upgrade-are-available
        Similar, but only shows notifications for dist-upgrade packages

    https://serverfault.com/questions/300749/apt-get-update-upgrade-list-without-changing-anything
        apt list --upgradable
        apt-get --simulate upgrade



    At this point, I think I'm going to have to scrape
    https://packages.debian.org or use the API:
    https://sources.debian.org/doc/api/

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  • From David Wright@21:1/5 to All on Sun Jun 30 20:30:01 2024
    On Sun 30 Jun 2024 at 02:31:28 (-0700), B wrote:
    Thanks for the suggestion, but unfortunately I already researched that
    and there are problems.

    On Sat 29 Jun 2024 at 22:46:00 (-0700), B wrote:
    It seems crazy that in all the history of Debian, nobody said "There's
    a package I care about and I want to get immediately when a new
    version is released."

    On Sat 29 Jun 2024 at 19:15:55 (-0700), B wrote:
    The packages I want to monitor are arbitrary and specific. The
    distribution and architecture must also be taken into account. For a
    given package, if I want to know about changes in unstable, then it
    must not generate notifications against stable, experimental, source,
    or some other architecture.

    Can I ask why?

    Cheers,
    David.

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  • From Greg Wooledge@21:1/5 to David Wright on Sun Jun 30 20:50:01 2024
    On Sun, Jun 30, 2024 at 13:22:15 -0500, David Wright wrote:
    On Sat 29 Jun 2024 at 22:46:00 (-0700), B wrote:
    It seems crazy that in all the history of Debian, nobody said "There's
    a package I care about and I want to get immediately when a new
    version is released."

    No, the crazy part is when you add "... on my airgapped Debian system"
    to the requirements.

    Most people who care about getting upgrades immediately are concerned
    because these are *security* updates, and their Debian systems are
    accessible over a network (perhaps the Internet); thus, keeping up to
    date on security patches is a high priority.

    On such systems, one may use unattended-upgrades to download the
    packages automatically, and possibly even install them automatically,
    depending on one's configuration choices.

    If your Debian system is airgapped, the security concerns are greatly
    reduced. Getting patches onto it becomes far less of a race against
    time.

    If you also want an email when security patches are released,
    there is already a solution to that as well: subscribe to the debian-security-announce mailing list.

    https://lists.debian.org/debian-security-announce/

    On Sat 29 Jun 2024 at 19:15:55 (-0700), B wrote:
    The packages I want to monitor are arbitrary and specific. The
    distribution and architecture must also be taken into account. For a
    given package, if I want to know about changes in unstable, then it
    must not generate notifications against stable, experimental, source,
    or some other architecture.

    Can I ask why?

    You can. I have a funny feeling we won't get an answer.

    The fact that B is interested in unstable *primarily* (it's the first
    thing mentioned) tells us an enormous amount.

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  • From B@21:1/5 to Greg Wooledge on Mon Jul 1 05:40:01 2024
    This is a multi-part message in MIME format.
    Darn and I liked your wiki. I didn't know you were a toxic.


    On 6/30/24 11:43 AM, Greg Wooledge wrote:
    Can I ask why?
    You can. I have a funny feeling we won't get an answer.

    The fact that B is interested in unstable*primarily* (it's the first
    thing mentioned) tells us an enormous amount.

    <html>
    <head>
    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
    </head>
    <body>
    <br>
    Darn and I liked your wiki. I didn't know you were a toxic.<br>
    <br>
    <br>
    <div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 6/30/24 11:43 AM, Greg Wooledge
    wrote:<br>
    </div>
    <blockquote type="cite" cite="mid:ZoGnbyvXLa4vt2sj@wooledge.org">
    <blockquote type="cite" style="color: rgb(0, 124, 255);
    --darkreader-inline-color: #33a3ff;"
    data-darkreader-inline-color="">
    <pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">Can I ask why?
    </pre>
    </blockquote>
    <pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">You can. I have a funny feeling we won't get an answer.

    The fact that B is interested in unstable <b class="moz-txt-star"><span class="moz-txt-tag">*</span>primarily<span class="moz-txt-tag">*</span></b> (it's the first
    thing mentioned) tells us an enormous amount.
    </pre>
    </blockquote>
    <br>
    </body>
    </html>

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  • From tomas@tuxteam.de@21:1/5 to All on Mon Jul 1 06:40:01 2024
    On Sun, Jun 30, 2024 at 08:34:25PM -0700, B wrote:

    Darn and I liked your wiki. I didn't know you were a toxic.

    Please stop that.

    He was one trying to offer help. Part of that help was pointing
    out that your requirements, as you stated them, are incomplete
    and possibly contradictory.

    Many of us (me included, I admit) just thought "uh, oh, let's
    wait until things become a bit clearer", which is, I admit
    again, a bit cowardly.

    Maybe Greg was a bit harsh. He is, sometimes. But not toxic,
    far from it.

    Cheers
    --
    t

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