Ubuntu shows updates / security updates on shell logins

[James Antill]

On Wed, 2009-11-04 at 16:50 +0000, Richard W.M. Jones wrote:
> Newly installed Ubuntu 9.10, when you log in over ssh you may see:
> 
>   34 packages can be updated.
>   10 updates are security updates.
> 
> I think this is a nice feature, because many administrators will log
> in to servers remotely over ssh and never see the graphical
> indications from packagekit et al.
> 
> Actually I was trying to work out how it's implemented.  The text goes
> into /etc/motd, and as near as I can tell, the Ubuntu "update-manager"
> (roughly equivalent of PackageKit) rewrites it whenever packages
> become available or get installed.  Is this something that PackageKit
> could also do?

 FWIW, I've added a summary-updateinfo command to the increasingly
misnamed security plugin.
 Takes all the same options as list-updateinfo / info-updateinfo, but
just prints a small summary:

% yum -q summary-updateinfo 
Updates Info Summary:
     6 Security update(s)
    56 Bugfix update(s)
    10 Enhancement update(s)
% yum -q summary-updateinfo new
Updates Info Summary:
    706 New Package update(s)
%

...putting that in motd, or whatever, is your fight :).

-- 
James Antill - james at fedoraproject.org
"I'd just like to see a realistic approach to updates via
 packages." -- Les Mikesell