Updates and Upgrades

Automatic updates

It is recommended to leave the automtic online updates active (on by default) to receive continuous feature and security updates. Starting with v21.0-p21280 you can also have different settings for Patch Level Updates and Major Upgrades.

Following is a more detailed description about the different types of updates / upgrades.

Major upgrades

A new major version usually includes

  • A new major version of the Linux kernel
  • Updates to most Linux core components

Some major upgrades even do a full side-by-side re-install, like v17.2 and v21.0. This is much more complex. Therefore such upgrades are rolled out over a longer time.

Upgrades from one to the next major release are provided some months after the major version was released. New versions always need some time to settle and if this new version is ready for a mass upgrade it’s rolled out to all systems.

Patchlevel updates

So called Patchlevel updates are smaller updates within one major version.

Such updates consists of

  • Bugfixes
  • New features
  • Security updates

DNS Filter updates

The DNS Web filter works based on filter lists which need to be updated regularly. This is also done automatically during the weekly online update. It is important to notice that the filter list updates can be quite big (a few hundred MB).

WebAdmin Menu

Manual Update

In the WebAdmin menu at System / Online update you can manually start the update / upgrade process.

History

In this tab you can download all update logs.

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Settings

In this tab you can edit following settings:

  • Automatic updates: to stay on a specific software version, it is possible to disable automatic upgrades / updates.
  • Update day + time: define days and the time-span in which the automatic online update is allowed to run. The system picks one of the allowed days randomly to start the update within the defined time-span. Depending on the size of the update and the available bandwidth speed (uplink), it may take some time to finish.

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Software maintenance

The system will be eligible for upgrades / updates released until the expiration date of the Software Maintenance. Any upgrades / updates released afterwards will not be available with the exception of bugfix updates.

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