Changes/EnableFwupdRefreshByDefault

Enable fwupd-refresh.timer by default on IoT, CoreOS & Server editions

This is a proposed Change for Fedora Linux.
This document represents a proposed Change. As part of the Changes process, proposals are publicly announced in order to receive community feedback. This proposal will only be implemented if approved by the Fedora Engineering Steering Committee.

Summary

fwupd-refresh systemd service unit & timer are designed to regularly refresh the fwupd metadata and update the MOTD when new firmware updates can be applied on a system. We want to enable the fwupd-refresh.timer by default on IoT, CoreOS & Server editions so that users get reminded about firmware updates.

On desktops, firmware updates are generally coordinated by graphical applications such as GNOME Software or Plasma Discover so we will not enable it on those editions.

Owner

• Name: Timothée Ravier, Renata Ravanelli
• Email: travier@redhat.com, rravanel@redhat.com

Current status

• Targeted release: Fedora Linux 39
• Last updated: 2023-08-10
• devel thread
• FESCo issue: https://pagure.io/fesco/issue/3054
• Tracker bug: <will be assigned by the Wrangler>
• Release notes tracker: <will be assigned by the Wrangler>

Detailed Description

Firmware for hardware devices can have bugs and firmware updates generally help address those. Firmware updates might however need manual interaction, a reboot or device unplug/re-plug so we can not enable firmware update by default.

This change thus only enable notifying about new firmware updates, not installing them.

With this change, Fedora installations will contact the Linux Vendor Firmware Service CDN (LVFS, https://cdn.fwupd.org/) to get the updated metadata but will not send any information about the hardware without user interaction.

See the LVFS privacy policy at https://lvfs.readthedocs.io/en/latest/privacy.html.

Link to the unit being enabled: https://github.com/fwupd/fwupd/tree/main/data/motd

Feedback

Discussion for each impacted edition:

• CoreOS: https://github.com/coreos/fedora-coreos-tracker/issues/1512 (Accepted)
• IoT: https://pagure.io/fedora-iot/issue/52 (Accepted)
• Server: https://pagure.io/fedora-server/issue/115 (Accepted)

Benefit to Fedora

Knowing when firmware updates can be applied on a system would make systems more reliable.

Scope

• Proposal owners: Do the change required to enable fwupd-refresh.timer by default

• Other developers: N/A

• Release engineering: N/A #Releng issue number

• Policies and guidelines: N/A (not needed for this Change)

• Trademark approval: N/A (not needed for this Change)

• Alignment with Community Initiatives: N/A

Upgrade/compatibility impact

No impact, it is just a refresh to check about new firmware updates. It will be enabled for existing and new systems.

How To Test

Install a system on hardware that has an old firmware and check if you get a notification about a new firmware update on login in the MOTD.

User Experience

User will still have to manually update their firmware.

Dependencies

There are no dependencies

Contingency Plan

• Contingency mechanism: Continue to ship things the way we ship them today
• Contingency deadline: N/A
• Blocks release? N/A

Documentation

N/A (not a System Wide Change)