Since

fleetd

has an auto-update mechanism, how synchronized does the package built with

fleetctl package

need to be with the installed version of

fleet

? My goal is to — as much as possible — “set it and forget it”, so I’d love to be able to toss a built

fleetd.deb

on a cache/fileshare for installation on other systems when they are deployed. Are there any known situations where I need to go back and rebuild the package — aside from enrollment key changes, if any — when upgrading Fleet versions, or will the

fleetd

auto-update mechanism just handle it if the version is out of sync with what the Fleet server expects?

Not sure if it helps, but they did write an article about fleetd updates in particular: https://fleetdm.com/guides/fleetd-updates

Hi Kiera! Good question. The short answer is yes, you could absolutely set and forget. Older versions of

fleetd

function with newer versions of the server (and the other way). It might be worth keeping it within a couple of versions of the latest in case of any major changes. But you can keep track of our releases on GitHub: https://github.com/fleetdm/fleet/releases?q=orbit&expanded=true But yes, the auto-update will keep it in line, providing you haven't disabled automatic updates. Other reasons you might need to rebuild the package is for server address changes, or, perhaps, enabling or disabling features (which may come with new Fleet server versions). Hopefully, I understood your question correctly!

Does fleetd have any concept of not updating if updating to new version requires a new fleet server version?

Hey @Phillip Boushy You can disable automatic updates when generating packages with

fleetctl package

by passing the

disable-updates

flag.

--disable-updates                               Disable auto updates on the generated package (default: false)

As an alternative to just disabling you can also just use the Fleet CLI to maintain your own asset server for fleetd agents if you have the Fleet Premium subscription: https://fleetdm.com/guides/fleetd-updates#initialize-the-repository

Alternatively, users with a Fleet Premium subscription can self-manage an update server.

You can disable automatic updates when generating packages with

fleetctl package

by passing the

disable-updates

flag.

I know that and we have that set. I meant has Fleet ever run into a time where the fleetd binary got too new for the fleet server version and is there a check in fleetd for that to basically be like "Oh the fleet server version is too old to go to the next version of fleetd"

Hey @Phillip Boushy, not sure how your response slipped past me there, sorry about that! No, it should not be possible for it to run into that scenario: https://github.com/fleetdm/fleet/blob/d9726ba6e02b3990be9e05c75546b0ac6947492d/docs/Contributing/workflows/fleetd-development-and-release-strategy.md However, there may come a time when breaking changes do happen. At which point, it will be in the release notes.