Automatic Updates

In the previous era software updates were significant events. Not only they did not happen automatically, but even to check if there was one, you had to do some special things. Look up a web page, download the installer package, uninstall the previous version, remembering to save settings somewhere, then run the new install and restore the settings.

Then appstores came around, popping up notification bubbles which were inviting to download and install updates. Now the updates are gone. Not that they are not anymore, but we mostly just don't see them. Both Apple and Google have hidden the updates and they execute kind of behind the scenes. And it works for most people,

But then there are some devices which can be considered a part of the "infrastructure" and updating them fully automatically probably is not the best idea.

I have the Firewalla boxes on my home networks and despite being very happy with them I have never pulled the trigger to switch the networks to be Firewalla-only. By that I mean I still have traditional firewalls/routers installed and the Firewallas are just added as a nice-to-have but not the foundational feature. Part of that is because I still do not trust the Firewalla model of a hosted service. Companies come and go and even the biggest ones tend to end-of-life their services much earlier than anticipated.

Still the Firewallas provide some essential services such as network - wide VPNs. What is nice - you can easily set up which LAN devices participate in the VPN connection, when active. For those devices to use the Internet the Firewalla box must be up and running, but it all happens transparently, to the extent that one can even forget this special setup existed.

Until it stops working out of the blue.

Actually not entirely out-of-the-blue, as it seems one of the recent automatic Firewalla updates broke that feature temporarily. Which exhibited itself as my iPad not being able to connect to the Internet. I use the iPad every morning to browse through my RSS feeds, check the news and other things while sipping the morning coffee. But on that morning it just could not connect. Every other device was connecting fine, the iPad did not. It took me several more sips of coffee to realize the iPad was a member of that special Firewalla VPN subnet, and it was this subnet that could not connect. Then I found out the Firewalla has just upgraded itself which was the most likely root cause of the problem. 

I rebooted the Firewalla, rebooted the iPad and the problem somehow went away. But still I don't feel comfortable when the pieces of the foundational connectivity infrastructure update themselves at will. They should download the update files and wait for the user/admin to apply/execute the updates. Otherwise, uncontrolled as they are today, the key infrastructure functions may just stop working - there is always a risk with any update.