According to Qubes 4.3, qubes-vm-update include next flag:
--leave-obsolete Do not remove updater and cache files from target qube
GUI version of Qubes update have no access to toggle that.
In usage case of many templates based on same original OS template with small modification, actual use of “–leave-obsolete” flag save significant amount of network traffic and time.
Anyone can mention downsides for use of “–leave-obsolete” flag? Any security risks?
Looking at the code it seems to run apt upgrade with dist_upgrade set to False.
From description:
If the parameter dist_upgrade is True, new dependencies will be
installed as well (and conflicting packages may be removed). The
default value is False.
The equivalent of apt-get dist-upgrade?
--leave-obsolete also prevents removal of obsolete kernels.
In case of dnf if disables obsoletes configuration option.
I think it’s all it does, see yourself if you want to know more:
user@dom0 $ grep -r 'leave_obsolete' /usr/lib/python3.13/site-packages/vmupdate
/usr/lib/python3.13/site-packages/vmupdate/agent/entrypoint.py: remove_obsolete=not args.leave_obsolete
user@dom0 $ grep -r 'remove_obsolete' /usr/lib/python3.13/site-packages/vmupdate
...