DNF Updater

DNF Updater monitors and manages pending DNF5 and Flatpak updates directly from the Noctalia bar. It provides a lightweight update badge in the bar, per-package selection to skip or apply specific upgrades, package search filtering, reboot required detection, download size estimation, and safe execution through Polkit or an interactive terminal.

Plugin

Field	Value
ID	strob3/dnf-updater
Entries	Bar widget: widget; panel: panel; service: service

Requirements

The plugin expects the following dependencies on $PATH:

• dnf5 - required for DNF, COPR, and RPM package management. Fedora 41+ uses DNF5 by default.
• flatpak - optional, Flatpak application manager
• pkexec - (Polkit authentication for non-interactive privileged package installation)

Passwordless Background Upgrades (Optional)

To enable background upgrades without a password prompt, install the included hardened helper script and Polkit rule with:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/strob3/dnf-updater/main/scripts/install.sh | sudo bash

Alternatively, if you have cloned the repository locally:

sudo ./scripts/install.sh

To remove the helper and Polkit rule later:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/strob3/dnf-updater/main/scripts/install.sh | sudo bash -s -- --uninstall
# or: sudo ./scripts/install.sh --uninstall

Usage

Add the DNF Updater widget to the bar using Noctalia's bar widget picker. Left-click the widget to open the updates panel. You can also toggle the panel or bind it to a compositor shortcut:

noctalia msg panel-toggle strob3/dnf-updater:panel

Shortcuts & Keybindings

You can also toggle the panel with a hotkey or shell alias:

Niri (~/.config/niri/config.kdl):

binds {
    Mod+U { spawn "noctalia" "msg" "panel-toggle" "strob3/dnf-updater:panel"; }
}

Hyprland (hyprland.conf):

bind = $mainMod, U, exec, noctalia msg panel-toggle strob3/dnf-updater:panel

Shell Alias (~/.bashrc or ~/.zshrc):

alias dnf-updater="noctalia msg panel-toggle strob3/dnf-updater:panel"
alias dnf-check="noctalia msg plugin strob3/dnf-updater:service service check"

Controls

Action	Target	Description
Left Click	Bar Widget	Open or close the updates panel
Right Click	Bar Widget	Refresh the updates
Middle Click	Bar Widget	Open plugin settings in Settings → Plugins
Search Input	Panel Top	Filter packages in real time by name, repo, or ref
Click Row	Package Row	Toggle package selection (include or exclude from update)
Chevron Click	Section Header	Collapse or expand DNF or Flatpak package section
Check Click	Section Header	Select all or deselect all packages in section
Refresh Icon	Panel Header	Re-check repositories for latest updates
Update Button	Panel Bottom	Apply updates for all selected packages

Settings

Setting	Type	Default	Description
check_interval	int	30	Interval in minutes between automatic checks (0 to 10080, 0 disables).
enable_dnf	bool	true	Enable checking and upgrading DNF5 system packages.
enable_flatpak	bool	true	Enable checking and upgrading Flatpak applications.
include_flatpak_runtimes	bool	false	Include Flatpak runtime and extension updates alongside applications.
show_widget_when_clean	bool	true	Show the widget icon in the bar even when system is up to date.
notify_on_updates	bool	true	Send a desktop notification when new pending updates are found.
update_in_terminal	bool	true	Launch update commands inside your terminal emulator instead of background Polkit execution.
glyph	glyph	package	Widget icon glyph displayed in the bar.

IPC

Trigger background service operations using noctalia msg:

# Check for updates immediately
noctalia msg plugin strob3/dnf-updater:service service check

# Apply updates for all pending packages
noctalia msg plugin strob3/dnf-updater:service service update

Notes

• Privilege Separation: Noctalia never runs as root. System upgrades invoke hardened helper script with explicit arguments via Polkit, or launch inside the user's terminal emulator when configured.
• Selective Upgrades: When packages are deselected, DNF5 is invoked with --exclude=<pkg> arguments and Flatpak is invoked with only selected application IDs.
• Background Checks: Update queries use non-blocking JSON queries (dnf5 check-upgrade --json and flatpak remote-ls --updates -j) to prevent freezing the shell.
• Reboot Detection: Checks dnf needs-restarting -r to detect when core packages (kernel, systemd, glibc) require a system restart.

License

MIT