Re: Non-interactive run of `freebsd-update upgrade` possible?

On 7/31/25 04:09, Patrick M. Hausen wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> It's time to upgrade our ~100 hosts - again - and I would really
> like to at least partly automate the procedure.
> 
> Current issue is that this sequence:
> 
> 	freebsd-update upgrade -r 14.3 -b /tmp/be_mount.EkJx
> 	freebsd-update install -b /tmp/be_mount.EkJx
> 	freebsd-update install -b /tmp/be_mount.EkJx
> 
> in my experience insists on asking "Does this look reasonable? (y/n)"
> interactively.
> 
> And no version of
> 
> 	export ASSUME_ALWAYS_YES=yes
> 
> or
> 
> 	--not-running-from-cron
> 
> seems to change that.
> 
> Am I missing anything? I mean, after updating a handful of test
> systems - and especially when upgrading into a new BE -
> it should be possible to just rollout the new release via Ansible.
> 

i usually handle updating our fleet by just rebuilding the systems since 
i am on AWS and that's a more natural design pattern for them.  there is 
this rc script included in the FreeBSD AMI's on AWS that automates 
applying patches via freebsd-update:

firstboot_freebsd_update_run()
{

         if ! checkyesno firstboot_freebsd_update_nonstandard; then
                 case "`uname -r`" in
                 *-BETA* | *-RC* | *-RELEASE*)
                         ;;
                 *)
                         echo "Firstboot freebsd-update disabled on 
`uname -r`"
                         return 0
                 ;;
                 esac
         fi

         env HTTP_TIMEOUT=5 freebsd-update --not-running-from-cron fetch
         if [ -e /var/db/freebsd-update/`echo / | sha256`-install ]; then
                 freebsd-update install
                 echo "Requesting reboot after installing updates."
                 touch ${firstboot_sentinel}-reboot
         fi
}


this tends to work pretty well in an automated fashion.  but to be 
honest i'm looking forward to pkgbase as it will make automation and 
auditing *much* easier in cloud environments.

-pete


> Thanks and kind regards,
> Patrick

-- 
Pete Wright
pete@nomadlogic.org