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Automatic Updates
Ben Cotton; Petr Bokoc; Jean-Baptiste Holcroft
You must decide whether to use automatic xref:dnf.adoc[DNF] updates on each of your machines. There are a number of arguments both for and against automatic updates to consider. However, there is no single answer to this question: it is up to the system administrator or owner of each machine to decide whether automatic updates are desirable or not for that machine. One of the things which makes one a good system administrator is the ability to evaluate the facts and other people's suggestions, and then decide for oneself what one should do.
A general rule that applies in most cases is as follows:
_If the machine is a critical server, for which unplanned downtime of a service on the machine can not be tolerated, then you should not use automatic updates. Otherwise, you *may* choose to use them._
Even the general rule above has exceptions, or can be worked around. Some issues might be resolved through a special setup on your part. For example, you could create your own DNF repository on a local server, and only put in tested or trusted updates. Then use the automatic updates from only your own repository. Such setups, while perhaps more difficult to set up and maintain, can remove a large amount of risk otherwise inherent in automatic updates.
How are automatic updates done?
You can use a service to automatically download and install any new updates (for example security updates).
The https://dnf.readthedocs.org/en/latest/automatic.html[dnf-automatic] RPM package as a link:dnf[DNF] component provides a service which is started automatically.
Install and settings of dnf-automatic
On a fresh install of Fedora 22 with default options, the dnf-automatic RPM is not installed. The first command below installs this RPM:
sudo dnf install dnf-automatic
By default, dnf-automatic runs from the configurations in the `/etc/dnf/automatic.conf` file. These configurations only download, but do not apply any of the packages. In order to change or add any configurations, open the `.conf` file as the root user (or using `sudo`) from a terminal window.
sudo nano /etc/dnf/automatic.conf
Detailed description of dnf-automatic settings is provided on the https://dnf.readthedocs.org/en/latest/automatic.html[dnf-automatic] page.
Run dnf-automatic
Once you are finished with the configuration, execute:
systemctl enable --now dnf-automatic.timer 
to enable and start the `systemd` timer.
Check status of `dnf-automatic`:
systemctl list-timers 'dnf-*'
Changes as of Fedora 26
As of Fedora 26 there are now three timers that control dnf-automatic.
`dnf-automatic-download.timer` - Only download
`dnf-automatic-install.timer` - Download and install
`dnf-automatic-notifyonly.timer` - Only notify via configured emitters in `/etc/dnf/automatic.conf`
You can still use `download_updates` and `apply_updates` settings from inside `/etc/dnf/automatic.conf`.
Can we trust DNF updates?
Dnf in Fedora has the GPG key checking enabled by default. Assuming that you have imported the correct GPG keys, and still have `gpgcheck=1` in your `/etc/dnf/dnf.conf`, then we can at least assume that any automatically installed updates were not corrupted or modified from their original state. Using the GPG key checks, there is no way for an attacker to generate packages that your system will accept as valid (unless they have a copy of the *private* key corresponding to one you installed) and any data corruption during download would be caught.

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type: delimited block -
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Source string location
./pages/autoupdates.adoc:59
String age
3 months ago
Last updated
3 months ago
Source string age
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pot/master/pages/autoupdates.pot, string 14