Add to /etc/rc.local before the ‘exit 0’ line:
mkdir /var/run/screen
chmod 775 /var/run/screen
chgrp utmp /var/run/screen
su USER -c 'screen -m -d -S SCREENNAME bash -c "COMMAND"'
Replace USER with the user you want the command to run as. SCREENNAME with any name you like, and COMMAND with the actual command to run in the screen.
The first three lines were necessary to work around a bug in screen on Ubuntu.
Ubuntu: Running a command in GNU screen on boot as another user - Comments
It’s useful to have a script to keep the packages on your server up to date. On the desktop there is a GUI auto-update tool which is active by default. The caveat is that you don’t want updates to break your server without you realising.
This script is adapted slightly from the Ubuntu wiki to do a ‘safe-upgrade’ and to mail directly rather than using an external SMTP server. It also tails the output of the update since it’s pretty long. Use at your own risk etc., script is below. Copy to /etc/cron.weekly and chmod +x.
#!/bin/bash
#
# use aptitude to automatically install updates. log and email any
# changes.
#
#
# variables to change
#
# address to send results to
MAILTO=[email protected]
#
# script is below here (do not change)
#
tmpfile=$(mktemp)
#
# actually run aptitude to do the updates, logging its output
#
echo -e "aptitude update\r\n..." >> ${tmpfile}
aptitude update | tail >> ${tmpfile} 2>&1
echo "" >> ${tmpfile}
echo "aptitude safe-upgrade" >> ${tmpfile}
aptitude -y safe-upgrade >> ${tmpfile} 2>&1
echo "" >> ${tmpfile}
echo "aptitude clean" >> ${tmpfile}
aptitude clean >> ${tmpfile} 2>&1
#
# i get a lot of escaped new lines in my output. so the following
# removes them. this could be greatly improved
tmpfile2=$(mktemp)
cat ${tmpfile} | sed 's/\r\r/\n/g'|sed 's/\r//g' > ${tmpfile2}
mv ${tmpfile2} ${tmpfile}
#
# now send the email (and ignore output)
#
mail -s "Aptitude Upgrade $(date)" ${MAILTO} < ${tmpfile} &> /dev/null
#
# and remove temp files
#
rm -f ${tmpfile}
Auto-update Ubuntu server with email notifications - Comments
