Re: "Service restarts being deferred"

[Kushal Kumaran <kushal@locationd.net>]

On Sat, Dec 19 2020 at 06:34:35 PM, Jesper Dybdal <jd-debian-user@dybdal.dk> wrote:
> On 2020-12-19 17:14, Dan Ritter wrote:
>> Jesper Dybdal wrote:
>>> I run Buster with unattended updates configured to allow reboots.
>>>
>>> Sometimes after an update, the log contains:
>>>
>>>> Service restarts being deferred:
>>>> ??systemctl restart systemd-logind.service
>>>> ??systemctl restart unattended-upgrades.service
>>> I don't understand why these services are not restarted, if necessary
>>> through a reboot.
>>>
>>> I want my system to be able to run truly unattended for a long time, so
>>> necessary restarts should be done without waiting for manual intervention.??
>>> And if the restarts are not necessary, why are they there at all, though
>>> deferred?
>>>
>>> So what have I misunderstood?
>> In your /etc/apt/apt.conf.d,  edit a file named 50unattended-upgrades
>>
>> // Automatically reboot *WITHOUT CONFIRMATION* if
>> //  the file /var/run/reboot-required is found after the upgrade
>> Unattended-Upgrade::Automatic-Reboot "true";
>>
>> // Automatically reboot even if there are users currently logged
>> // in.
>> Unattended-Upgrade::Automatic-Reboot-WithUsers "true";
>>
>> Without those two lines, you get the behavior you currently
>> have.
>>
>> Not everyone wants automatic reboots; not everyone wants
>> automatic reboots even with someone logged in.
>
> Thanks.
> I already have Automatic-Reboot set, and it correctly causes reboot
> after for instance kernel upgrades.
> I do not have Automatic-Reboot-WithUsers set, since I did not imagine
> it would make a difference when there actually are no users logged in.
> But I'll try setting it also and see if that somehow makes a difference.

>From the documentation of Automatic-Reboot, it only has effect for
updates that result in the /var/run/reboot-required file being created.

For service restarts, the needrestart configuration would be a better
place to start.  The comments in /etc/needrestart/needrestart.conf are
instructive:

    # do not restart oneshot services, see also #862840
    qr(^apt-daily\.service$) => 0,
    qr(^apt-daily-upgrade\.service$) => 0,
    qr(^unattended-upgrades\.service$) => 0,

    # don't restart systemd-logind, see #798097
    qr(^systemd-logind) => 0,

Do go through those bug reports and experiment at a safe time before
changing things here.

-- 
regards,
kushal