# syspatch

[syspatch](https://man.openbsd.org/syspatch) helps provide binary patches to OpenBSD. It brings your system up-to-date [from -release to -stable](https://www.openbsd.org/faq/faq5.html). These patches do not include feature updates and should be safe to apply to production servers immediately.

    $ doas syspatch


System patching can be automated by setting up a cronjob:

    $ doas crontab -e


At the bottom, add this line:

    ~      ~      *       *       *       /usr/sbin/syspatch


The system update will start at a random minute and hour of the day. This prevents all machines from running the exact same job at the exact same time, which would slow down a server running multiple jobs.

## Troubleshooting

    $ doas syspatch
    syspatch: Error retrieving https://cdn.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD/syspatch/7.1/amd64/SHA256.sig: 404 Not Found


If you see this message, then the server is missing the patches for this version of the OS. Switch [mirrors](https://openbsd.org/ftp.html) by editing `/etc/installurl`.

    $ doas syspatch
    syspatch: cdn.openbsd.org: no address associated with name


If you see this message, then [DNS resolution](/dns/overview) is not working properly.

Double check [/etc/resolv.conf](https://man.openbsd.org/resolv.conf) to make sure nameservers are specified. You may want to configure [unbound](/unbound/configure).