aptmatic 🤖📦

Because SSHing into 40 servers one by one to run apt-get upgrade is a cry for help.

A snappy terminal UI for wrangling apt across a fleet of Debian/Ubuntu hosts — written in Rust, because I don't know how to code in OCaml.

╭─ aptmatic ─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╮
│ Hosts          │  Detail                                               │
│ ▸ webservers   │  web1.example.com                                     │
│    ● web1  [2] │  user: ubuntu  port: 22  sudo: true                   │
│    ● web2      │                                                       │
│ ▸ databases    │  Status: 2 upgrade(s) available                       │
│    ⠸ db1       │                                                       │
│    ● db2       │  Kernel                                               │
│                │  Running: 6.1.0-28-amd64                              │
│                │  Latest:  linux-image-6.1.0-32-amd64 ← reboot to activate │
│                │                                                       │
│                │  Upgradable                                           │
│                │  curl (7.88.1-10 →) 7.88.1-10+deb12u8                │
│                │  libcurl4 (7.88.1-10 →) 7.88.1-10+deb12u8            │
╰────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╯
 r:refresh  R:refresh all  u:update  U:upgrade  p:purge-rc  t:task output  z:zoom  q:quit

Features

• 🖥️ Multi-host dashboard — see every host's status at a glance
• 👥 Groups — organise hosts and trigger actions on a whole group at once
• 🔑 SSH native — talks directly to each host over SSH, no agents or daemons required
• 🌀 Live task output — watch apt-get upgrade scroll by in real time
• 🐧 Kernel tracking — know which hosts are silently waiting for a reboot
• 📦 Held/kept-back packages — spot the stragglers and why they're stuck
• 🧹 RC package purging — one key to purge all those half-removed ghosts
• 🖱️ Draggable divider — because you deserve to customise your own TUI
• 🦀 Written in Rust — guaranteed* to have no bugs

* guarantee void where prohibited by logic

Installation

cargo install aptmatic

Or build from source:

cargo build --release
# binary at ./target/release/aptmatic

Configuration

aptmatic looks for its config at ~/.config/aptmatic.toml by default. Pass -c /path/to/config.toml to override.

[defaults]
user = "ubuntu"
port = 22
use_sudo = true

[[groups]]
name = "webservers"

[[groups.hosts]]
hostname = "web1.example.com"

[[groups.hosts]]
hostname = "web2.example.com"
user = "admin"   # override per-host

[[groups]]
name = "databases"

[[groups.hosts]]
hostname = "db1.example.com"

Keybindings

The sidebar divider is also mouse-draggable if you're feeling fancy.

Development

just build   # build
just fmt     # format
just lint    # fmt check + clippy

Why?

Managing a modest fleet of Linux boxes with apt should not require an orchestration platform, a PhD in Ansible, or accepting a cookie banner. aptmatic is a single binary, a TOML file, and a spare SSH key away from a good time.