Ultimate Updater 5.1

Status: Stable release.

Highlights

Central Web UI for cluster status, checks, updates, jobs, logs, configuration, and External management.
Session-independent systemd jobs that survive browser or SSH disconnects.
Cluster-wide operation across Proxmox nodes with persistent status and locking.
Separate CHECK and UPDATE filters with ONLY taking precedence over EXCLUDE.
Read-only Check and Update previews using the corresponding runtime selection.
A systemd-backed Scheduler for daily and selected-weekday Check/Update jobs,
including selected target schedules.

External Linux support for APT and DNF over SSH.
Dedicated SSH identity, non-root checks, and restricted root-owned helper/sudo access.
Target-local /etc/ultimate-updater/external.conf settings with independent Check/Update filters.
Global Update includes selected External targets while applying central filters before any remote contact.
Recent manual backup verification or an explicit one-time owner override is required before External updates.

Snapshot/backup safety and lifecycle restoration for Proxmox guests.
Bounded remote, QEMU Guest Agent, package-manager, and cluster execution paths.
Continue-after-errors preserves the final non-zero run status.
Safer configuration migration, self-update preservation, and notification behavior.
Friendly job/status output, visible zero-update results, and deterministic golden-output regression tests.

PAM-backed administrator login with session, CSRF, and same-origin protections.
Default Web UI port 8765, configurable locally with
ultimate-updater config set web-port PORT.
Port conflicts are reported without stopping or modifying the other process.
Responsive desktop/mobile configuration, filter previews, External settings,
job history, logs, and running-job visibility.

Existing VM SSH profiles under /etc/ultimate-updater/VMs/<VMID> remain
supported for local and remote cluster paths. They do not need to be entered
again in the Web UI. Internal SSH overrides are an additional, optional
configuration path.
QEMU Guest Agent detection accepts both legacy and current Proxmox agent
property formats, including additional agent options.
Guest lifecycle, QEMU guest-exec, remote-node refresh, target filtering,
snapshot protection, and Community-Scripts execution paths received bounded
failure handling and regression hardening.

Upgrade from 5.0 through the normal installer/self-update path.
Existing installations can upgrade through the normal installer/self-update
path using the stable master branch.
Existing configuration, unknown keys, comments, External settings, and a
custom Web UI port are preserved.
Historical internal VM SSH profiles remain internal and are not exposed as
External systems. Affected pre-release [legacy-<VMID>] artifacts are
cleaned up safely during self-update without touching real External targets.
Verify ultimate-updater-web.service is enabled and active after upgrade.
Upgrading from version 5.0 or earlier to 5.1 requires a restart of the
Proxmox host to fully complete the migration. The host remains usable before
the restart, but some updater components may not work reliably until then;
the updater does not reboot the host automatically.
Upgrades within the 5.1 line do not require this migration restart; individual
update results may still report REBOOT REQUIRED.

Windows support is prepared but remains experimental/deferred from the
supported 5.1 baseline pending dedicated live validation.
Automatic External backup integrations such as restic, borg, PBS workflows,
or custom hooks are not implemented. Manual time-bound verification remains
the current safety mechanism.

Stable software should still be used with current backups. Feedback and
reproducible test information are welcome.