[Bug 1828634] Re: update-notifier runs too often on a Ubuntu

[vodopad27]

Hello Steve, all,

Thank for your activity. But something looks strange...

I am using standard update-notifier utility from official Ubuntu repo.

My PC is running 1h:
vodka at vodka-PC:/proc/9489$ uptime
12:56:19 up  1:00,  1 user,  load average: 0,40, 0,56, 0,60

I determined the process PID for update-notofoer:
vodka at vodka-PC:~$ ps -p 9489 -f
UID        PID  PPID  C STIME TTY          TIME CMD
vodka     9489  6656  0 12:20 tty2     00:00:00 update-notifier

And look to /proc/9489/io file:
vodka at vodka-PC:/proc/9489$ cat /proc/9489/io
rchar: 223710992
wchar: 83357541
syscr: 33821
syscw: 22900
read_bytes: 122880
write_bytes: 85102592
cancelled_write_bytes: 79491072

i.e. script writes 85102592/1024/1024=81 megabytes to disk.

81 megabytes per hour, 81*24/1024=1.9 GB per day.

I ran a strace command as follow:
vodka at vodka-PC:~$ sudo strace -p 9489 -f  -e trace=open,openat,creat -o /tmp/update-notifier.txt
strace: Process 9489 attached with 4 threads

And i see that script writes data to disk (PSA).

Could you please provide your comments?

** Attachment added: "update-notifier.txt"
   https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/update-notifier/+bug/1828634/+attachment/5263056/+files/update-notifier.txt

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1828634

Title:
  update-notifier runs too often on a Ubuntu

Status in update-notifier package in Ubuntu:
  Incomplete

Bug description:
  Hello.

  update-notifier runs too often on a Ubuntu. According to sources (update-notifier.c) utility check updates every 10 minutes:
  // the timeout (in sec) when a further activity from dpkg/apt
  // causes the applet to "ungray"
  #define TIMEOUT_APT_RUN 600 /* 600 sec */

  As result, this utility writes about 2 gigabytes on disk per day
  (https://imgur.com/4jzbONU). This is to much for me. I want to save
  SSD resources. I want to decrease update check interval up to ~2h. It
  is will be  OK for me.

  Could you please make check interval configurable? 'Every 10 min'
  should be by default, but users should be able to change this interval
  via config files or GUI.

  What do you think? Thank you!

  ProblemType: Bug
  DistroRelease: Ubuntu 19.04
  Package: update-notifier 3.192.18
  ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 5.0.0-13.14-generic 5.0.6
  Uname: Linux 5.0.0-13-generic x86_64
  NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia_modeset nvidia
  ApportVersion: 2.20.10-0ubuntu27
  Architecture: amd64
  CurrentDesktop: ubuntu:GNOME
  Date: Sat May 11 01:01:43 2019
  InstallationDate: Installed on 2018-05-02 (373 days ago)
  InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 18.04 LTS "Bionic Beaver" - Release amd64 (20180426)
  SourcePackage: update-notifier
  UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to disco on 2019-04-18 (22 days ago)

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