apt System Maintenance Script
Mark GrantThere is nothing clever about this script, it is really just a helper script which saves typing.
The APT system used by Debian and it’s derivatives (Ubuntu, Raspbian, etc.) mainly revolves around updating the package lists and upgrading installed packages. i.e.
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade
Over time the system can get polluted with obsolete packages in the cache and installed packages which are no longer required. The helper script discussed here addresses these subjects.
Script Design
The script runs a number of apt-get commands
apt-get upgrade
The first command run is upgrade which upgrades installed packages if a newer version is available.
apt-get autoclean
This removes packages from the cache which can no longer be downloaded.
apt-get check
This updates the package cache and checks for broken dependencies.
apt-get autoremove
This removes packages which were automatically installed to satisfy a dependency for another package being installed and are no longer required.
And that is it!
Installing the agmaint package
The APT maintenance helper script package is called agmaint.
To prevent bitrot of this blog, please follow the installation instructions for your distribution at the project wiki:-
https://github.com/m-grant-prg/agmaint/wiki
Running the script
The script should be run regularly, I run it every day but less frequently is OK. You have to run the script with elevated privileges:-
sudo agmaint.sh
Authoritative sources
The authoritative source for this project is held on GitHub at:-
The code repository:- https://github.com/m-grant-prg/agmaint
The wiki:- https://github.com/m-grant-prg/agmaint/wiki
To view or raise issues please visit:- https://github.com/m-grant-prg/agmaint/issues
My Projects
Software and Debian packaging sources can be found on GitHub: https://github.com/m-grant-prg
Debian, Fedora, openSUSE and Raspbian packages can be found on the openSUSE Build Service: https://build.opensuse.org/project/show/home:m-grant-prg
Ubuntu packages can be found in my PPA on LaunchPad: https://code.launchpad.net/~m-grant-prg/+archive/ubuntu/utils
The entry point to my Ubuntu packages on LaunchPad: https://launchpad.net/~m-grant-prg
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Written by
Mark Grant
Mark Grant
I have spent many years in IT starting as a programmer in C and Basic then moving into general, data centre and infrastructure management. I am now back writing software mostly in bash and C. These are usually in the form of AutoTools projects which are often then packaged for various Linux distributions such as Debian, Raspbian, Ubuntu, Fedora and openSUSE.