How do you handle updates on a server?
Solution 1:
Cron-apt does exactly this:
http://www.debian-administration.org/articles/162
Solution 2:
I like to have the minimum of auto-updated packages and the important ones are the security updates. For this reason, I add the following to the cron-apt config file:
OPTIONS="-o Dir::Etc::SourceList=/etc/apt/security.sources.list"
and then make /etc/apt/security.sources.list have just the Debian security repositories enabled. That way, I get all the security updates automatically installed in a timely manner (each night) and I can do other, riskier upgrades that might break things by hand.
Solution 3:
You should also look at running your own cron job if using aptitude:
-
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/AutoWeeklyUpdateHowTo
(bottom of the page)
Also look at the package Etckeeper for keeping backups of your /etc files in a repository (git, mercurial etc.).