Score:0

Updating Offline Servers

nz flag

I have basically 2 subnets: 1 with machines that have internet access (call it VLAN 11) and 1 with machines without (VLAN 12). I have WSUS on VLAN 11 and have also installed Landscape on VLAN11 as well. My issue is this: I have plenty of documentation and have fully configured WSUS for all my Windows machines on VLAN12 to be provided updates...how do I go about this for the Ubuntu machines? All of my Linux machines are Ubuntu server and all are registered already into Landscape but I couldn't really find anything telling me how to provide updates to offline machines, just stuff on how to synchronize configurations via running scripts (and it looks like all those scripts assume access to the internet for traditional apt-get update/upgrade runs). Any help would be appreciated!

Score:0
in flag

For providing package updates to an isolated network, you have a couple options:

  • As you already have Landscape, you can mirror upstream repositories pockets (e.g. security updates) and series (i.e. versions of Ubuntu) to it, and then create a Landscape repository profile. The mirror basically copies and serves the packages locally and the repository profile instruct client computers to replace their list of repository mirrors by landscape (so there are no external connections). Both of those are covered by the Landscape documentation and require using the Landscape API.
  • Alternatively, if you do not wish to mirror the package archive or to rely on Landscape, you could just deploy a caching proxy (e.g. apt-cacher-ng or squid-deb-proxy) to your DMZ (i.e. VLAN11) and point computers from the isolated network (i.e. VLAN12) to it by configuring their apt proxy configuration.

The Landscape mirror has the added benefit of being able to filter packages, snapshot them, and have finer control over how updates are rolled-out. It also handles the client computer's apt configuration.

The proxy method has the benefit of being somewhat lightweight. You could possibly also mix solutions by having both a caching proxy and using a Landscape repository profile to update the clients apt configuration.

P.S. edit: this does not cover snap packages though. At the time of this writing, Landscape doesn't install, handle, or mirror, or proxy or is even aware of snaps.

InternetEnabledSquirrel avatar
nz flag
Thank you SO much! I must have just been using the wrong search terms. I went with a lot of what you said: I am going to use Landscape to manage the apt.conf files BUT I installed squid on the landscape machine and am just going to use it as the proxy for the offline subnets (tested and works). Since it's not a corporate environment I'm not horribly worried about verifying packages before deployment. Thanks again for the help!
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