Weekly digest of Docker image updates? reddit / selfhosted ---------------------------------------------------------------------- JimmyRecard · 2023-12-30 12:42 Hi. I'm trying to decide how to manage my docker updates now that I have 20+ containers running and manually checking them is no longer an option. For low complexity containers that are either unlikely to break or simple to re-build I'll just use Watchtower and auto-update once a week. However, for more critical services, I'd like to get a weekly email listing all my containers that have an update. Like a checklist where I can sit down when I have time, go through their release notes looking for breaking changes and update manually. Obviously, the go-to recommendation is [Diun](https://crazymax.dev/diun/), but from what I can tell, it only supports immediately sending an individual email per update (am I wrong?). I can set it to check only once weekly, but if it tries to shotgun me with potentially 20+ emails in a short span of time, it might get rate limited or even banned for spam by my SMTP provider. Is there a way to get it to send a single weekly digest of due updates? Alternatively, is the another similar solution that can do the update checking and send me a weekly update digest? Thanks for any suggestions you may have. Edit: I've settled on the solution suggested by /u/shbatm and /u/lilolalu with notifications from Watchtower. Baically, you enable the whitelist mode using `WATCHTOWER_LABEL_ENABLE=true` and then for each container you specify either: To have Watchtower automatically update the container labels: - "com.centurylinklabs.watchtower.enable=true" To have Watchtower monitor only and send an email notification if anything is found labels: - "com.centurylinklabs.watchtower.monitor-only=true" - "com.centurylinklabs.watchtower.enable=true" and then also no labels to have Watchtower simply skip the container you don't want updated or checked at all. Then, by setting the update schedule to run once a week on saturday morning, Watchtower will wake up, automatically update containers that are labeled with enable label only, and then send an email with the list of containers that it found updates for but didn't update, for me to review when I have time to manually update. The email looks like this btw: Found new lscr.io/linuxserver/qbittorrent:latest image (a91ad9904293) Found new lscr.io/linuxserver/prowlarr:latest image (3c6d4c059d88) Found new lscr.io/linuxserver/calibre:latest image (1d7b8662b2d1) Found new lscr.io/linuxserver/readarr:nightly image (3741aa67335c) The only minor nitpick is that this doesn't tell me which stack/compose or container name the outdated image belongs to, so if you have many instances of the same image, good luck, but it still gets me 98% of the way there. Thank you all for your suggestions. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Allram89 · 2023-12-30 12:53 I use newreleases.io I add the Docker images i want there, and either get a notification on Discord, or just check newreleases what's changed and if it's worth updating. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- shbatm · 2023-12-30 12:54 You can use Watchtower in notify-only mode and set it to weekly with the Cron schedule. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ragnarkarlsson · 2023-12-30 13:50 I use DIUN + Ntfy, which granted requires both to be up but means I don't care about rate limits. DIUN is configured to check on a set schedule and push notifications via Ntfy. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- dburton1105 · 2023-12-30 14:01 Whats up docker with discord notifications is what i use ---------------------------------------------------------------------- lilolalu · 2023-12-30 14:07 I am using watchtower with individual labels per containers. Containers that are essential for my homelab are configured to be not auto updated but just send a notification over matrix. Containers that are "non-essential" get auto updated and a message is sent via matrix that they have been updated. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- JimmyRecard · 2023-12-30 14:14 If I have Watchtower on whitelist mode (where an enable label is required for each container) and if I want to 'monitor only' the essential containers do I need to list both enable label and 'monitor only' label on essential containers or will monitor only label by itself be fine? In other words, is Watchtower able to monitor only the containers that it isn't enabled for with the label? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- JimmyRecard · 2023-12-30 14:16 Oh, so it basically runs it's checks, updates what it can, then sends a single email listing all the updates it performed and all the updates that it found using 'monitor' only and then it sends nothing else until next check? Am I understanding that right? If so, that's actually perfect. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- lilolalu · 2023-12-30 14:24 Afaik you can set the default behaviour for unlabeled containers to "monitor only", "update" (unless labeled otherwise) or "do nothing" (except for when labeled) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Mag37 · 2023-12-30 14:39 Tooting my own horn here - [dockcheck.sh](https://github.com/mag37/dockcheck) It does not check your boxes I'm afraid.. but there's the `brief` version of it or possibility to run it and with a few flags and only produce a list of what containers got updates. That could in turn be used to mail yourself if you build a chain of scripts or a wrapper. There have been talk about this in an [issue](https://github.com/mag37/dockcheck/issues/43) and I recently added a monochrome mode to not break mailing the output with ASCII color codes (following a recent [feature request](https://github.com/mag37/dockcheck/issues/48 ). ---------------------------------------------------------------------- JimmyRecard · 2023-12-30 14:45 Interesting. Not quite what I'm after (at least not yet) but I've set a 'notify on close' rule for that issue you linked. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- PaddyStar · 2023-12-30 14:52 Use for notify dijun and for updates your script since a few month. Great work! Thanks! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Mag37 · 2023-12-30 15:00 I figured its not the solution to your issue. Considering the issue and suggestion, would it solve your needs with having a function-sample and setting your own mail-preferences within like that? I havnt had time to invest in it yet, but I'll see what I can cobble together. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- mreggi · 2023-12-30 16:28 I'm using renovatebot for that. I have my docker compose files in a private github repo and the bot will create a pull request for each container update. So you can validate the upgrade version before allowing it. There are also some settings you can tweak so no maker versions are allowed or auto complete pull requests. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- GregPL151 · 2023-12-30 16:50 I had the same use case that I wanted to receive a notification when new image is available and I started with Watchtower but it is not doing what I wanted. Then I moved to Diun + NTFY. Now I have Diun to send webhook notification to my Home Assistant instance and Home Assistant sends me a notification via NTFY. In Home Assistant you can add this docker image to to-do list and look at this list once a week. I’m working on a dynamic dashboard on HA to manage all my docker containers through Portainer API including updating images and actionable NTFY notifications. I get a notification that new image is available and I can click to update it immediately or get back to it later and update it with one click on my dashboard in HA. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- toufodido · 2023-12-30 18:49 Been using what's-up-docker, and works so far, also nice customisation with all the watchers and triggers, https://github.com/fmartinou/whats-up-docker ---------------------------------------------------------------------- taxigrandpa · 2023-12-30 21:51 alternatively, can you get your ISP to whitelist a bot email address? when i explained to mine why this one service was sending me 14 emails a day (it's my DVR) they were able to release the restriction for that particular source. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- fenty17 · 2023-12-31 00:04 I’d second this. WUD is great and integrates with Home Assistant. I also have rss feeds from github releases added to freshrss so I can scan changelogs when checking my other feeds. I then batch update containers/stacks manually. Much prefer this combo to any auto updates as it means I can keep an eye on the development progress too. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- useless_debian_user · 2023-12-31 00:21 just adding a note here container can break your usage of them, i had the qbittorrent image leaving my head scratching one morning when the 4.6.2? update no longer had a default password set on the web interface leaving me unable to login ofc people are free to add that you should configure every last one of your cts, harrumph kids these days and so on so forth ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Spuxilet · 2023-12-31 08:29 The way i have this is i use whatsupdocker and have ntfy service. So whenever there is an update it sends me info about it to my phone. Then i come back and update it manually. I do not update anything automatically. Do not like idea of something that crucial changing by itself on my server.