Written 24 Aug 2026. This is a how-to, not a product card. Buy links are not tagged yet.

Keep the leftover box updated

Once a week, give the leftover box its fixes so SSH and Pi-hole are not sitting on last year's bugs. Skip this until next week if you just finished first weekend.

Once a week, give the leftover box its fixes so SSH and Pi-hole are not sitting on last year's bugs. An update is the leftover box downloading those fixes. Two commands. That is the weekly job, not a shopping trip.

Skip this until next week

If you just finished your first weekend with the leftover box, that note already updates once. You can wait a week. Come back then.

SSH in, then two commands

From your normal computer, SSH from the couch. Then run two commands, one after the other.

Refresh the list of fixes:

sudo apt update

Install them:

sudo apt upgrade

Say yes to the upgrade prompt. If it asks about restarting services, yes is fine on a leftover box that is not a store.

Reboot only if it says so

Reboot only if the leftover box says so, or after a kernel line shows up. A kernel line is a core-of-the-OS fix. If you see one, reboot is the clean way to finish.

sudo reboot

Then find the leftover box on the house network and SSH back.

Do not turn on unattended-upgrades

Do not turn on unattended-upgrades this weekend. That is the setting that applies fixes by itself. One weekly habit is enough.

What next

If the leftover is a laptop, keep it awake when the lid closes. That is don't let the leftover laptop sleep. If it is still on Wi-Fi, plug a cable: a cable beats Wi-Fi for the leftover box. If you have no second copy of the house folder, that is a backup of the leftover-box folder. Do not buy a NAS.

Skip

Skip this note until next week if you just ran the first-weekend update. Skip unattended-upgrades. Skip a NAS, a new mini PC, and a new switch.