Adding to that, the machine ID is a global identifier and changing it could lead to all sorts of unpredictable consequences elsewhere.

Hmm, time to fetch some random characters on each boot for this file and see what starts going on.

I think the advice was to set a configuration value for apt that would override the value, not to change the actual machine id.

yeah, they are clearly talking about setting the APT::Machine-ID override in /etc/apt/apt.conf.d, not the actual /etc/machine-id

Note that this code actually turns phase-updates ON. To turn them OFF:

  Update-Manager::Never-Include-Phased-Updates;
  APT::Get::Never-Include-Phased-Updates: True;

Perhaps the advice is bad because this doesn't appear to be mentioned in the documentation.

As I understand it, either 'always' or 'never' actually solve OP's problem. (edit: was both/and - both sounds like a bad idea.)

"always include" effectively puts you in phase 0 - if an update is being phased, you're an eager beaver.

"never include" effectively puts you in phase 100 - if an update is being phased, you'll wait until the phasing is complete.

AIUI OP's problem isn't that he wants these updates on day 0, it's that he wants his environments to be consistent with each other, which either of these options would provide.

Anybody got this to work? I've tried setting the different values from the AskUbuntu page [1]:

    Update-Manager::Always-Include-Phased-Updates;
    APT::Get::Always-Include-Phased-Updates: True;

In a file /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/99phased-updates. I've also tried the Never version of them. Neither one seems to have any effect. The only thing that seems to work is the suggested command-line setting:

    sudo apt -o APT::Get::Always-Include-Phased-Updates=true upgrade

[1]: https://askubuntu.com/questions/1246962/what-apt-configurati...

FYI: After just throwing a bunch of stuff at the wall, I've finally come up with the following which does work, at least for apt (haven't tried update manager):

    Update-Manager::Always-Include-Phased-Updates;
    APT::Get::Always-Include-Phased-Updates True;

Note the lack of a ":" in the APT:: line. Putting a : silently causes it to do phased updates.