Server: Email notifications for pending upgrades

[steckerhalter]

I think it would be great if Nextcloud could notify the Admin via Email if there are pending upgrades. This would make it easier to deal with upgrades also on instances one is not actively using but rather just maintaining.

[nickvergessen]

Since Nextcloud 10 we have update notifications delivered by the notifications API. When you have a sync client set up and connected, it will bring the notifications to your desktop.

However I just discussed with one of my colleges today, that it would also be cool to send a reminder email after some days to the admin when the instance is still not updated.

[001101]

why not just make it auto-update able?

[baldurmen]

To me this is very important since as a sysadmin I manage some Nextcloud instances that I don't use myself.

Using the desktop app to know a new upgrade is pending is thus not a solution.

[Dreamsorcerer]

Alternatively, how about Nextcloud instances that you do use, but not through the web interface or a Nextcloud app? Then you don't see any notifications at all.

i.e. I use Nextcloud primarily for syncing contacts/calendar. This is done through the online accounts in GNOME on my laptop and syncevolution on my phone. Neither of these tell me anything about upgrades.

[c33s]

an email on pending updates is really important. having such a widespread app, you should add such a important feature to make the web a little bit more secure.

that it would also be cool to send a reminder email after some days

i am clearly against a delay. the email should be sent instantly, not with some days delay. if there is a security hole, the admins want to be notified (instantly).

i assume that updates are only shown to the admin user, so keep in mind, that you require me to work as admin with my sync app to get such important informations.

workaround i found (german text but the code is english):
https://spielwiese.la-evento.com/xelasblog/archives/75-Mailbenachrichtigung-bei-verfuegbaren-Nextcloud-Updates.html

[nickvergessen]

Well, the thing is: if you don't use the admin account for syncing, you might also not have set an email address for it. Also this issue here is just meant to be an additional reminder.

i assume that updates are only shown to the admin user, so keep in mind, that you require me to work as admin with my sync app to get such important informations.

You are assuming wrong. In the admin section you can actually select which groups get update notifications. By default it's admin only, yes. But if you don't sync with the admin user (like I do), you can also change it to any other group.

[nickvergessen]

Additionally those update notifications are displayed are displayed as push notifications on android and iOS clients, and also the desktop client shows the notifications.

[michaellass]

@nickvergessen I tend to disagree here. As an admin, I may only use ownCloud Nextcloud using the web UI or just for syncing calendars and contacts. Or I may administer an instance for other people so I don't use it myself at all. Running a client all time just to be informed about updates is a not very comfortable.

--
Edited: Oops. As a defense: This only shows how seamless the migration to Nextcloud was 😉

[nickvergessen]

Well if you are using ownCloud we can't help you anyway. [/joke]

But well, I do agree that this should be fixed. I'm just saying it's not as bad as people are drawing it.

[Dreamsorcerer]

It's as bad as we're saying, for the group of people such as myself, who currently receive no notifications, because we don't use the sync app or similar.

Maybe it's only a small number of users, but for those users, it is a moderately serious security issue, as there is no obvious way to get notified promptly about upgrades. Currently, I typically find out about security updates weeks or sometimes even months after they are released, when I just happen to log in to the web interface.

[kesselb]

I added https://github.com/nextcloud/server/releases.atom to my rss reader. Edit: I just found https://coderelease.io (send you an email when new release on github)

[baldurmen]

I wouldn't mind if the fix was exposing a parameter in occ that told you if your instance is up to date or not.

I could write a cron job or an icinga2 test against that and get notified.

[kesselb]

@baldurmen https://github.com/nextcloud/server/pull/10836 (unfortunately too late for nextcloud 14)

[c33s]

@danielkesselberg of course these links help, but still they show all releases. normally a admin does not care for beta releases or release candidates. the admin wants to know is there a security update for my current installation.
we are all flooded with messages from multiple services: emails, newsletter, github, rss feeds, social networks,... so nextcloud should add this feature to help admins to net get drowned in too many unneeded emails and only send an email if the admin should act.

[hjbotha]

A perspective that may not have been considered just yet: For the past year I've been wondering what's wrong with my instance that it's not sending me an email when new versions are released. It only occurred to me as I was typing up a question on the forum that I may have misunderstood the function, and to read the notification option carefully and search for it (which brought me here). Others may be letting their instance go unupdated not realising that there's numerous updates available.

The reason I haven't seen the notifications is because I rarely use the web app, like others here. The sync is done on my server, and I access the synced directory over the network.

[AquaL1te]

This would also be useful for update notifications of apps. Sure I also have the sync client and see notifications there. But the workflow of a sysadmin for these kind of things are usually via email notifications.

[baldurmen]

I was using the old owncloud client and I used to get notified of updates this way, but now that I switched to the nextcloud client I don't get those notifications anymore...

I've hacked some icinga2 tests to check for app updates and core updates for now, but this is getting really painful :(

[nickvergessen]

That should actually work quite fine

[ezzra]

This would also be useful for update notifications of apps.

I want to emphasize this statement, because it seems to be much more important to me. I am currently managing more than 20 Nextcloud instances which I am not using by my own. So I rarely login there. I actually do follow the Nextcloud releases stream, so I know when its time to update my instances. Some of them are even managed instances and therefor updated by another company.

But for all of these instances there are different apps active, for some instances there are even other users enabling/disabling apps. So I would need to follow all these release channels and then know which apps are active in which instances. Then login manually to the concerned instances and press the update button. And thats even the case for the managed instances because normally app updates are not included in the management. That is more than inconvenient and its feeling very much unprofessional.

A Mail notification with a direct link would help here, because then only the concerned instances would notify. An autoupdater for apps as an option (and activity notification) would make this even more handy for a lot of environments.

[andreapx]

I've just seen this and I have to agree, email notification would be really useful.

[baldurmen]

Since the addition of occ update:check you can run a cronjob to alert you by email when there are updates available or use the ouput in a proper monitoring system.

[ezzra]

that wont work if you don't have shell access. This is true for managed nextcloud setups.

[ilippert]

Why not simply add a checkbox-based choice of whether the specified groups (to be informed about updates) should also be informed by email?

[fosple]

Agree with @ilippert

[joostvkempen]

a checkbox would be perfect!

[kesselb]

@fosple @joostvkempen please use GitHub reactions. If you comment everyone subscribed to the issue get's a notification.