PVE-Cron-LXC-Apps-Update

Disclaimer: This project is NOT affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to community-scripts / Proxmox VE Helper Scripts. It is an independent wrapper that automates their update-apps.sh tool.

PVE-Cron-LXC-Apps-Update automates unattended updates for community-scripts-managed LXC containers on Proxmox VE. It runs update-apps.sh, backs up containers first, and posts a clean summary notification.

Quick Start

bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Skulldorom/PVE-Cron-LXC-Apps-Update/main/install.sh)"

This launches an interactive whiptail menu that:

1. Scans your Proxmox node for community-script LXC containers
2. Walks you through frequency (daily/weekly/monthly), hour, notifications, backups, and dry-run options
3. If backups are enabled, detects backup-capable storage targets using the upstream update-apps.sh selection logic
4. Installs update-community-apps.sh, a cron wrapper script, and configures the crontab

What It Does

• Runs community-scripts update-apps.sh unattended with:
  • var_backup=yes|no — snapshot with vzdump before updating (toggleable)
  • var_unattended=yes — no interactive prompts inside containers
  • var_skip_confirm=yes — skip initial confirmation
  • var_continue_on_error=yes — continue to next CT if one fails
  • var_auto_reboot=yes — reboot CT if app requires it
• Per-container error resilience — one container failing does not abort the run; downstream processing (summary, notification, status file) always executes
• Bounded readable logs only — produces a single timestamped .log per run from upstream's own Full log: file, capped at 10 MiB by default; raw terminal-noise output is held temporarily as a 1 MiB tail-only capture for fallback parsing
• Last-run status file — writes /var/log/update-community-apps-last-status with exit code, timestamp, containers, and error count; the installer Status menu reads it for ✅/❌ display
• Captures the summary table for quick review
• Optionally sends the summary followed by the clean run log, with the ending summary removed, through Proxmox VE's default notification pipeline
• Upstream's generated full log is copied into /var/log/update-community-apps-YYYYMMDD_HHMMSS.log without duplicating noisy spinner output into the stable cron log; oversized logs are truncated with a warning while preserving the beginning and final summary tail

Manual Usage

# Normal update — backup then update
/usr/local/bin/update-community-apps.sh "101,102,105,109,111" "HDD-Storage"

# Dry-run — check what's available without applying
/usr/local/bin/update-community-apps.sh "101,102,105,109,111" "HDD-Storage" dry-run

# Run without backups — no storage selection needed
BACKUP=no /usr/local/bin/update-community-apps.sh "101,102,105,109,111"

Arg	Required	Description
container_ids	✅	Comma-separated list of CT IDs to update
backup_storage	Required when BACKUP=yes	Proxmox storage name for pre-update backups
dry-run	❌	Pass dry-run as 3rd arg to check only

Environment Variables

Variable	Default	Description
NOTIFY	yes	Set to no to skip Proxmox notification delivery
BACKUP	yes	Set to no to skip pre-update vzdump backups
MAX_WORKER_LOG_BYTES	10485760	Maximum bytes for each persisted timestamped worker log
MAX_UPSTREAM_CAPTURE_BYTES	1048576	Maximum bytes retained from upstream terminal output while looking for the Full log: pointer
UPDATE_COMMUNITY_APPS_LOG_DIR	/var/log	Directory for timestamped worker logs; mainly useful for tests
UPDATE_COMMUNITY_APPS_STATUS_FILE	$UPDATE_COMMUNITY_APPS_LOG_DIR/update-community-apps-last-status	Last-run status file path; mainly useful for tests
UPDATE_COMMUNITY_APPS_UPSTREAM_LOG_DIR	/usr/local/community-scripts/update_apps	Directory where upstream update-apps.sh writes its full logs
UPDATE_COMMUNITY_APPS_UPSTREAM_SCRIPT_URL	community-scripts raw GitHub URL	Upstream script URL; mainly useful for tests

Configuration

The installer creates a config file at /etc/update-community-apps/config with all settings:

CONTAINER_IDS="101,102,105"
BACKUP_STORAGE="local"
BACKUP="yes"
SCHEDULE="0 5 * * 0"
NOTIFY="yes"
DRY_RUN="no"

A thin wrapper script at /usr/local/bin/update-community-apps-wrapper.sh sources this config and calls the worker. The crontab entry invokes the wrapper, keeping the cron line compact and editable via the Edit Config menu.

Edit Config

The installer's Edit Config menu shows each current value and lets you keep it or change only that setting — no reinstall, no remembering your old LXC IDs, no ritual sacrifice to the cron gods. When backups are enabled, storage is selected immediately after the backup prompt; when backups are disabled, storage is skipped. It rewrites the config file, wrapper script, and crontab entry atomically.

Requirements

• Proxmox VE node with pct and vzdump available
• curl and whiptail installed on the host
• Community-scripts-managed LXC containers (tagged community-script or proxmox-helper-scripts)
• Storage target(s) configured in Proxmox with backup content type enabled
• The installer lists storage targets using the same backup-capable storage detection as the upstream update-apps.sh tool

Recommendations

• Proxmox notifications — configure notification targets and matchers in Proxmox VE (Datacenter → Notifications). When enabled, this updater sends the summary at the top of the notification, followed by a sanitized run log with terminal redraws, banners, scan progress spam, and the ending summary removed, through the default Proxmox notification pipeline instead of posting to a custom webhook URL. The updater creates the required simple notification templates in /etc/pve/notification-templates/default/ if they are missing, so webhook targets can render the summary payload.
• proxmox-discord-notifier — companion service that receives the JSON webhook payload and delivers it to Discord. Provides rich embed formatting for update summaries. Install it on your homelab and point NOTIFIER_URL at its /api/notify endpoint.
• Log monitoring — check /var/log/update-community-apps-*.log for readable run output based on upstream's own Full log: file. If upstream exits before printing that pointer, the wrapper falls back to the newest upstream log in /usr/local/community-scripts/update_apps created during the run. Raw terminal-noise output is not kept as a separate timestamped log and is not duplicated into /var/log/update-community-apps-cron.log. Notification delivery successes and failures are appended to the timestamped worker log; failures also print a warning to cron stderr.

Files

Path	Purpose
/usr/local/bin/update-community-apps.sh	The worker script (installed by install.sh)
/usr/local/bin/update-community-apps-wrapper.sh	Cron wrapper — sources config, calls worker
/etc/update-community-apps/config	Configuration file (source-able key=value pairs)
/var/log/update-community-apps-YYYYMMDD_HHMMSS.log	Per-run worker log copied from upstream's Full log: output, capped at 10 MiB by default
/var/log/update-community-apps-cron.log	Stable cron stdout/stderr log
/var/log/update-community-apps-last-status	Last-run status (exit code, timestamp, errors)

Log Rotation

Each run creates one timestamped worker log file. The worker caps each persisted run log at 10 MiB by default (MAX_WORKER_LOG_BYTES=10485760) and keeps only the last 1 MiB of temporary upstream terminal capture (MAX_UPSTREAM_CAPTURE_BYTES=1048576). Timestamped logs still accumulate because every run uses a unique path, so the included logrotate config removes worker logs older than 28 days and also rotates them early at 10 MiB. The cron stdout/stderr log is handled separately as /var/log/update-community-apps-cron.log, rotates daily, keeps 3 compressed rotations, and rotates early at 10 MB.

To prevent unbounded accumulation, install the included logrotate config:

cp logrotate.conf /etc/logrotate.d/update-community-apps

Or download directly:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Skulldorom/PVE-Cron-LXC-Apps-Update/main/logrotate.conf \
  -o /etc/logrotate.d/update-community-apps

This removes timestamped worker logs older than 28 days, and keeps 3 compressed daily rotations of the stable cron log with a 10 MB max size. The installer also includes a Logs menu where you can change the timestamped worker log retention period, browse all current updater logs, or delete current updater logs.

Testing

Run the local shell regression harness from the repository root:

bash -n update-community-apps.sh install.sh tests/*.sh
bash tests/run.sh
bash tests/cron-path.sh
bash tests/notification-noise.sh

The test fakes the upstream community-scripts updater and Proxmox notification module so it can validate the early-exit log fallback and notification diagnostics without a live Proxmox VE node.

Installer Menu Options

Option	Description
Install	Discover containers & storage, configure schedule, install cron
Edit Config	Keep current settings or change only containers, backups/storage, schedule, notifications, and dry-run without reinstalling
Dry Run	Check for updates without applying (reads args from config or prompts)
Update	Diff and pull latest update-community-apps.sh from GitHub
Remove	Remove cron schedule, wrapper, config file, and local script
Status	Show installed state, human-readable schedule, ✅/❌ last-run outcome
Run Now	Manual trigger — runs script immediately
Logs	Manage log retention, view update logs, and delete current update logs
View	Display installed script, config file, and cron config

Schedule Options

The installer supports three schedule frequencies:

Frequency	Cron Expression	Example Display
Daily	0 H * * *	"Daily at 05:00"
Weekly	0 H * * DOW	"Weekly: Sunday at 05:00"
Monthly	0 H DAY * *	"Monthly: day 15 at 05:00"

The Status menu parses the cron entry and displays a human-readable schedule description. The Edit Config menu lets you change the schedule at any time.

License

MIT — see LICENSE