apticron is a shell script that send you an email report when new packages are available on your debian server.
Install apticron
As root, do:
apt-get install apticron
apticron configuration via /etc/apticron/apticron.conf
To receive reports on your email change the EMAIL variable in the configuration file. By default, reports are sent to the root user.
EMAIL="root" -> EMAIL="you@domain.com"
Reports received
Now apticron will send you reports like this:
apticron report [Sat, 26 Jul 2008 06:45:47 +0200] ============================================== apticron has detected that some packages need upgrading on: localhost.localdomain [ 127.0.0.1 XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX ] The following packages are currently pending an upgrade: lighttpd 1.4.13-4etch10 ======================================================================== Package Details: Reading changelogs... --- Changes for lighttpd --- lighttpd (1.4.13-4etch10) stable-security; urgency=low [ Pierre Habouzit ] * Non-maintainer upload. * Fix [CVE-2008-1531] patches mess, and add a missing hunk of the patch. -- Thijs Kinkhorst thijs debian org Tue, 22 Jul 2008 12:19:10 +0200 ======================================================================== You can perform the upgrade by issuing the command: aptitude dist-upgrade as root on localhost.localdomain It is recommended that you simulate the upgrade first to confirm that the actions that would be taken are reasonable. The upgrade may be simulated by issuing the command: aptitude -s -y dist-upgrade -- apticron
Apticron files
For more informations, you can have a look to those files:
/etc/cron.daily/apticron /usr/sbin/apticron