What is Ubuntu Advantage doing on my (fully supported) 20.04 box, what is it checking for twice a day, and can I get rid of it?
This fine answer works great for 18.04.
It tells you to remove the package which is great because on 18.04 it only removes the additional package ubuntu-minimal
.
However, on 20.04 it wants to remove a lot more stuff, namely
ttf-mscorefonts-installer
ubuntu-release-upgrader-gtk
update-manager
update-manager-core
update-notifier
update-notifier-common
because of the following dependency tree:
$ aptitude why ubuntu-advantage-tools i ttf-mscorefonts-installer Depends update-notifier-common (>= 0.119ubuntu2) i A update-notifier-common Depends update-manager-core (>= 1:17.04.2) i A update-manager-core Depends ubuntu-advantage-tools
That's unacceptable, so we have to look for another way. And here it is.
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Stop and mask the services
sudo systemctl stop ua-messaging.timer sudo systemctl stop ua-messaging.service sudo systemctl stop ua-timer.timer sudo systemctl mask ua-messaging.timer sudo systemctl mask ua-messaging.service sudo systemctl mask ua-timer.timer
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Check that it worked
systemctl status ua-messaging.service systemctl status ua-messaging.timer systemctl status ua-timer.timer
You should see a status like this for each
$ systemctl status ua-messaging.service * ua-messaging.service Loaded: masked (Reason: Unit ua-messaging.service is masked.) Active: inactive (dead) $ systemctl status ua-messaging.timer * ua-messaging.timer Loaded: masked (Reason: Unit ua-messaging.timer is masked.) Active: inactive (dead) since Fri 2021-11-12 23:10:16 GMT; 1min 2s ago Trigger: n/a Nov 12 01:09:42 focal systemd[1]: Started Ubuntu Advantage update messaging. Nov 12 01:10:16 focal systemd[1]: ua-messaging.timer: Succeeded. Nov 12 01:10:16 focal systemd[1]: Stopped Ubuntu Advantage update messaging. $ systemctl status ua-timer.timer * ua-timer.timer Loaded: masked (Reason: Unit ua-timer.timer is masked.) Active: inactive (dead) Trigger: n/a
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Remove the APT hook (see this answer for details why)
sudo rm /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/20apt-esm-hook.conf
and after a day or so check /var/log/ubuntu-advantage.log
to confirm it is not running any more.