luci-app-attendedsysupgrade and owut by default?

[Thibaut]

Hi,

> Le 26 sept. 2025 à 04:01, Daniel Golle <daniel at makrotopia.org> a écrit :
> 
> Hi,
> 
> On Thu, Sep 25, 2025 at 10:33:51PM +0200, Hauke Mehrtens wrote:
>> Hi,
>> 
>> I would like to have the basic attended sysupgrade features in the default
>> images for the next major release.
>> 
>> I am not very familiar with the feature and what is needed.
>> 
>> I think LuCI should inform the user when a new major release is available.
> 
> Currently both, the LuCI app as well as owut only show possible updates
> when instructed by the user to do so.
> 
> We should better think twice before having all devices with those tools
> installed query online services for updates when ever the admin logs in,
> this has wide ranging implications regarding the user's privacy as well,
> RAM usage for package lists, data consumption on metered connections, ...

+1

I think that if OpenWrt devices started *by default* to « phone home » (whether directly or via an in-browser query), that would certainly be a concern.

Such a feature - while appealing - should *absolutely* be an opt-in, and not an opt-out.
Opt-out may also have legal implications (e.g. GDPR?).

> I'd therefore restrict this to query for release updates (and not just a
> newer snapshot build in case of a device currently running a snapshot
> image, and also only query for package updates upon user requests).
> Checking the availability of an newer release could be done using a
> TXT record in DNS, for example, which would be much more lightweight
> (on both ends) than using HTTPS JSON RPC queries for that.

That’s indeed better from a privacy point of view.

My 2c.
T