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cron package

How to change the time of daily automatic updates check

Asked by WilhelmGGW

How do I change what time of day my Update Manager checks for updates? I have it set for checking ever day.. which it does. But at an hour that is not the best for me -- e.g., at 8am instead of the prefered 5am daily.

Update Manager.. Settings.. Automatic Updates doesn't give me any choices for time-of-day.

Thanks for the help.

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Ubuntu cron Edit question
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marcobra (Marco Braida)
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marcobra (Marco Braida) (marcobra) said : 		#1

Since the check of updates are managed by cron utility you need to modify the crontab file (daily schedule)

http://chrisjean.com/2009/03/18/changing-when-daily-cron-jobs-run-in-ubuntu/

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/CronHowto

You can then customize also using this:

http://kubuntuforums.net/forums/index.php?topic=3107644.15

You can also give a try to cron-apt

http://www.unixmen.com/linux-tutorials/441-automatic-package-updates-in-ubuntu-using-cron-apt

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WilhelmGGW (wilhelmggw) said : 		#2

As pointed out in the CronHowTo.. "but it is much easier to use the Gnome Scheduled tasks tool (from the gnome-schedule package) in Applications --> System Tools."

To set this up, I need to know what the command is for the system update manager. I don't find that on any of these pages.
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?

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WilhelmGGW (wilhelmggw) said : 		#3

see above. still need help.

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marcobra (Marco Braida) (marcobra) said : 		#4

do you have installed the gnome-schedule package...?

Easy to install from terminal:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install gnome-schedule

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marcobra (Marco Braida) (marcobra) said : 		#5

then still from terminal type:

gnome-schedule

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WilhelmGGW (wilhelmggw) said : 		#6

Yes, the package is installed and working. But to set up a new sceduled task, I need to know its command.

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Best marcobra (Marco Braida) (marcobra) said : 		#7

i think the easy way is to modify the system wide /etc/crontab file so type from terminal

gksu gedit /etc/crontab

and modify the daily row so to run it at 8.00 every day

# m h dom mon dow user command

00 8 * * * root test -x /usr/sbin/anacron || ( cd / && run-parts –report /etc/cron.daily )

Save and exit

Hope this helps

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WilhelmGGW (wilhelmggw) said : 		#8

Thanks marcobra (Marco Braida), that solved my question.