The Unexpected Upgrade
Ubuntu Linux is designed to be secure and stable, and part of that design involves a background service called “Unattended Upgrades.” By default, Ubuntu will automatically download and install critical security patches and software updates in the background without asking for your permission. While excellent for security, this automated process can be problematic for power users, system administrators, or developers. An automatic update might consume your bandwidth during an important meeting, unexpectedly restart a critical system service, or introduce a breaking change to a specific application version you rely on.
How to Disable Unattended Upgrades via the GUI
If you are using the standard Ubuntu desktop environment, you can disable automatic updates using the built-in Software & Updates utility.
1. Open your application grid and search for Software & Updates.
2. Launch the application and click on the Updates tab at the top.
3. Look for the drop-down menu labelled Automatically check for updates:
4. Change this setting from “Daily” to Never.
5. Next, look for the drop-down menu labelled When there are security updates:
6. Change this setting from “Download and install automatically” to Display immediately.
7. You will be prompted to enter your administrator (sudo) password to confirm the changes. Click Close.
Ubuntu will no longer run the update process in the background. You will now be fully responsible for opening the terminal and running sudo apt update and sudo apt upgrade manually when you are ready.
How to Disable Unattended Upgrades via the Terminal
If you are managing an Ubuntu Server, or prefer the command line, you must edit the apt configuration files directly.
1. Open your terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T).
2. Open the unattended-upgrades configuration file using a text editor with root privileges:
sudo nano /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/20auto-upgrades
3. You will see a file that likely contains the following lines:
APT::Periodic::Update-Package-Lists "1";
APT::Periodic::Unattended-Upgrade "1";
4. The “1” indicates the feature is enabled. Change both of these values to “0” to disable them.
APT::Periodic::Update-Package-Lists "0";
APT::Periodic::Unattended-Upgrade "0";
5. Save the file (Ctrl+O, then Enter) and exit (Ctrl+X).
This instantly kills the background update daemon, ensuring your system packages will never change unless you explicitly execute an upgrade command.