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When I log into my Ubuntu 18.04 LTS system, I get this message:

5 additional security updates can be applied with ESM Apps.
Learn more about enabling ESM Apps service at https://ubuntu.com/esm

My question is how I find out what packages need these ESM updates. I thought the answer was "apt update && apt upgrade" but this does not show that any updates are needed:

# apt update && apt upgrade
Hit:1 http://dl.google.com/linux/chrome/deb stable InRelease
Hit:2 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic InRelease
Hit:3 http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic-security InRelease
Hit:4 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic-updates InRelease
Hit:5 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic-backports InRelease
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
All packages are up to date.
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Calculating upgrade... Done
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.

How do I figure out what 5 packages need ESM security updates? If they aren't packages I use, I'll just delete them.

EDIT for additional clarity: I'm not trying to update the packages. I'm trying to get a list of them so I can delete them if I don't use them.

DDP
  • 53

3 Answers3

9
ua security-status --esm-apps

Package names in bold currently have an available update.

Artur Meinild
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gpt-3
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1

ESM is a feature of Ubuntu Pro, which is a proprietary product so our insight is minimal.

As your sources suggest that you are not subscribed to Ubuntu Pro, you cannot see the names of the individual packages, nor access those ESM security updates anyway; they are simply not in the standard (free) Ubuntu repos.

  • 18.04 users should be migrating to a newer release. Standard Support ends in three short months. After that, no more (free) non-ESM security updates, and we won't answer questions about 18.04 anymore!

  • 18.04 Security updates for bionic-security/main end in April 2023. When Standard Support ends, new security updates will go to ESM instead, available only to subscribers.

  • 18.04 Security updates for bionic-security/universe are already in ESM, available only to subscribers. Security in Universe is a community responsibility, so it often doesn't get done during the years of an LTS. Hence the market opportunity for Pro.

Since 18.04 --as of this writing-- is still in Standard Support, it is likely that the mentioned ESM packages are from the Universe repository. Audit the software that you added after install from the Universe pocket of the Ubuntu repositories.

user535733
  • 68,493
0

For sudo apt update to show these updates, you would have to add the esm repositories to your sources, which involves signing up for an free account.

I did this for my elderly relative's 18.04 system, since learning a new desktop is not an option for them, and it seems to work pretty well.

Organic Marble
  • 24,696