How strackt keeps your servers updated

strackt keeps the system on your servers up to date for you. Updates are applied automatically, restarts follow a steady rhythm you can choose, and you get notice before any routine restart. Once a month you get a summary of what changed.

Updates are applied automatically

When we release an update for the system your servers run, strackt applies it to each server automatically. You don't need to approve it. Most updates take effect straight away, without a restart.

If an update would change nothing on a particular server, strackt skips it there, and it doesn't appear in that server's activity. You only see updates that actually changed something.

You can see the automatic updates on a server's Activity page. Choose Automatic updates to list only those. Where strackt recorded them, an update also shows what it changed and which security fixes it brought in.

strackt doesn't notify you about each automatic update. If one fails, you're told, as with any other failure.

Restarts happen only when an update needs one

Some updates, to the core of the system, only take effect after the server restarts. Until then the server keeps running the previous version, and the fixes in that update aren't active yet. strackt books a restart only in that case. If no update is waiting on a restart, your server isn't restarted.

How often

By default restarts are monthly: a routine restart is booked no sooner than 28 days after the server last started. If you'd rather have fixes take effect sooner, choose Every two weeks under Settings → Maintenance → Restart servers. A restart is then booked no sooner than 14 days after the server last started.

Changing this setting doesn't move a restart that's already booked to an earlier day.

How much notice you get

A routine restart is always booked at least 7 days ahead, and it runs during your maintenance window. So the restart date is the later of these two, in your window:

• 7 days after strackt books it, and
• 28 days (or 14, if you chose every two weeks) after the server last started.

You get a notification when a restart is booked, and another when it completes. The date also appears on the server's page, with a Restart now button if you'd rather get it over with.

Postponing a restart

If the date doesn't suit you, you can postpone a restart once, by 2 weeks (Postpone 2 weeks). It moves at least 14 days later, into your maintenance window.

A few limits apply:

• You can postpone only while the restart is more than an hour away.
• A postponement can't carry a restart beyond 45 days after the server last started. If postponing would go past that, the option isn't offered.
• Urgent security restarts (below) can't be postponed.

The 45-day limit is about postponing. It doesn't promise that a server restarts within 45 days: a restart always gets its full notice, so one booked late can land after that.

Urgent security fixes

Some security problems are known to be actively exploited: attackers are using them right now. When the update waiting on your server fixes such a problem in the system's core, strackt treats the restart as urgent:

• The restart is booked for 4 hours later, outside your maintenance window.
• It can't be postponed. You can still restart sooner with Restart now.
• You get a notification that a critical patch needs a restart in about 4 hours.

If a routine restart is already booked and we learn that a fix it carries is being actively exploited, strackt brings that restart forward in the same way. This only ever moves a restart earlier.

We may also bring a restart forward ourselves when a security fix needs to be in place sooner. Those restarts are booked for 3 days later, in your maintenance window, and show as a security restart.

Security patches are applied to the servers that need them within 24 hours of the advisory. Most need no restart; when one does, it follows the schedule above.

Your monthly summary

Early each month, if anything happened on your servers the month before, you get one summary by email and in your notifications. It lists how many automatic updates and restarts there were, how many security fixes landed, the state of each server, and any restarts coming up. If nothing happened, no summary is sent.

What to do next

• Set a maintenance window that matches your quietest hours, so routine restarts happen when nobody notices.
• Decide whether monthly restarts suit you, or switch to every two weeks.
• When a restart is booked, leave it, postpone it once, or restart now. See When your server needs a restart.