What Ubuntu's 'New release available' means

What "New release available" means on Ubuntu

The line "New release '26.04.1 LTS' available. Run 'do-release-upgrade' to upgrade to it." means Ubuntu's release upgrader checked Ubuntu's servers and found a newer release that your settings allow. It is an offer. Nothing has been installed, and your server is not missing a security fix because of it.

You can ignore the offer, act on it, or turn the notice off. Your 24.04 server keeps getting security updates in every case. This guide explains where the notice comes from and how to control it. The same mechanism runs in every LTS (long-term support) cycle. 26.04.1 is simply the current example.

What prints the notice when you log in?

The text is part of the MOTD (message of the day), the block of text Ubuntu prints after an SSH login. The MOTD is built from small scripts, and one of them asks the release upgrader whether a new release exists. Do not trust a path from a blog post for this. Find the script on your own server:

grep -il 'release' /etc/update-motd.d/*

Open the file it names with cat or less. You will see that it does not do the check itself. It calls a helper from Ubuntu's release upgrader packages. That helper stores its result and does not ask Ubuntu's servers on every login. This is why the notice can appear a little after a release is enabled, and why it can stay for a while after you change your settings. The helper script shows where the result is kept and how often it is refreshed.

To confirm which package owns the helper, pass its path to dpkg -S. Replace the example path below with the full path the MOTD script calls:

dpkg -S /full/path/from/the/motd/script

The answer itself comes from Ubuntu, not from your server. The upgrader downloads a small metadata file that lists each release and whether it is supported. The addresses are in a config file you can read:

cat /etc/update-manager/meta-release

That file lists two URLs. URI points at https://changelogs.ubuntu.com/meta-release, which lists every release. URI_LTS points at https://changelogs.ubuntu.com/meta-release-lts, which lists only LTS releases. You can read the LTS list yourself:

curl -s https://changelogs.ubuntu.com/meta-release-lts | grep -E '^(Dist|Version|Supported):'

As of October 2026 the last entry in that list is resolute, version 26.04.1 LTS. That entry is what your login notice is reporting.

Why do 24.04 servers only show it now?

Ubuntu does not offer an LTS-to-LTS upgrade on the day the new LTS ships. It waits for the first point release, the .1. The 24.04 release notes stated the rule for the previous cycle: "Users of 22.04 LTS will also start being offered the automatic upgrade now that 24.04.1 LTS has been released." (Ubuntu 24.04 release notes)

The wait exists because the upgrade path itself needs testing. A fresh 26.04 install and a 24.04 server upgraded in place are different systems. Bugs that only appear during an upgrade are found and fixed in the months after the first release.

In this cycle the gap was longer than the point release. Ubuntu 26.04 shipped on 23 April 2026. Ubuntu 26.04.1 followed on 27 August 2026. The 26.04.1 release announcement said 24.04 users would be offered the upgrade "a couple of weeks following this release after some planned backports to address regressions in a recent version of rust-coreutils". The upgrade was enabled on 29 September 2026. That is when 24.04 servers started printing the notice.

Nothing changed on your server to make the notice appear. What changed is the metadata Ubuntu publishes. For what the new release actually contains, read what changed in Ubuntu 26.04.1 and when to upgrade.

Is "New release available" a security update?

No. The notice is about moving to a different release. Security fixes for 24.04 come through apt, from the 24.04 archive, as ordinary package updates. Ubuntu 24.04 stays in standard support until 2029, so a 24.04 server that never upgrades still gets those fixes.

The MOTD often shows both kinds of message together, which is why people confuse them. Lines that count updates, such as a number of packages that "can be applied immediately", are about apt packages for your current release. The "New release" line is about a whole new release. To see what apt has waiting for your current release:

sudo apt update
apt list --upgradable

If your server installs security updates on its own, that happens through unattended-upgrades, which reads apt configuration. It does not read the release upgrader's settings at all. The setup is covered in automatic security updates with unattended-upgrades.

Where is the notice configured? The Prompt= line

The release upgrader reads one setting, Prompt=, from /etc/update-manager/release-upgrades. Check the value on your own server before you change anything. Do not assume the default:

grep -i '^Prompt' /etc/update-manager/release-upgrades

The file also carries comments that explain each value. Read them with cat /etc/update-manager/release-upgrades. There are three values:

• Prompt=lts checks for a new LTS release only, using the LTS metadata file. On a 24.04 server this offers 26.04 once Ubuntu enables the path, and skips the interim releases in between. If the running release is not an LTS, it behaves like normal.
• Prompt=normal checks for the supported release that comes right after the one you run, using the full metadata file. Interim releases count, so this setting moves a server through every release, one step at a time.
• Prompt=never turns the check off. The notice stops, and do-release-upgrade does not look for a new release.

Most servers should run an LTS and use lts. The difference between the two release tracks is covered in LTS versus interim releases on a server.

Check for a new release yourself

You do not need to wait for the next login. The upgrader has a check-only mode:

do-release-upgrade -c

The -c flag (--check-dist-upgrade-only) only checks. It never starts an upgrade. It reports the result through its exit code, and when a release is on offer it prints the same message as the MOTD. It needs to reach changelogs.ubuntu.com, so it fails on a server with no outbound internet access, or behind a proxy that blocks that host.

How to defer the upgrade without stopping security updates

The simplest way to defer is to do nothing. The notice is an offer, and nothing happens until a person runs do-release-upgrade. Unattended upgrades install package updates for your current release only. They never run a release upgrade.

If the notice itself is the problem, for example on a shared server where another admin might act on it, set Prompt=never:

sudo sed -i 's/^Prompt=.*/Prompt=never/' /etc/update-manager/release-upgrades
grep -i '^Prompt' /etc/update-manager/release-upgrades

The grep should now print Prompt=never. If it prints nothing, the file had no Prompt= line for sed to change, so add one under the [DEFAULT] section with a text editor. The notice may still show on the next login or two, because the MOTD helper keeps its last result until its next refresh.

Now confirm that automatic security updates are still active:

systemctl list-timers 'apt-daily*'
cat /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/20auto-upgrades

You should see the apt-daily.timer and apt-daily-upgrade.timer units with a next run time. The 20auto-upgrades file should contain APT::Periodic::Unattended-Upgrade "1";. Neither of these reads /etc/update-manager/release-upgrades, so changing Prompt= cannot switch them off.

Do not silence the notice with apt-mark hold, by removing the release upgrader packages, or by deleting the MOTD script. Each of those has side effects on future updates and hides the situation from the next admin. Write down why you deferred. Set the value back to lts when you are ready, because do-release-upgrade will not offer the new release while the setting says never.

What if do-release-upgrade says there is no new release?

That is the opposite situation, and it has its own causes, covered in why do-release-upgrade says "No new release found".

Should you upgrade now?

The notice tells you an upgrade is possible. It does not tell you that the time is right. Start with whether to upgrade to 26.04.1 now, which weighs what the new release changes against how long 24.04 stays supported. When you decide to go ahead, follow the step-by-step 24.04 to 26.04 upgrade, which covers backups, the upgrade itself and the checks to run afterward.

FAQ

What does "New release '26.04.1 LTS' available" mean on Ubuntu Server?

It means Ubuntu's release upgrader found a newer release that your Prompt= setting allows. It is an offer to upgrade, printed at login by a MOTD script. Nothing is installed until you run do-release-upgrade, and your current release keeps getting security updates.

Why did my Ubuntu 24.04 server start showing the notice months after 26.04 came out?

Ubuntu offers LTS-to-LTS upgrades only after the first point release of the new LTS. Ubuntu 26.04.1 was released on 27 August 2026, and the upgrade from 24.04 was enabled on 29 September 2026, after fixes for regressions in rust-coreutils. The same wait for the .1 release happens in every LTS cycle.

Is the new release notice a security update I must install?

No. Security fixes for your current release arrive through apt as normal package updates. Check them with apt list --upgradable after sudo apt update. The release notice is only about moving to a different Ubuntu release.

How do I stop the "New release available" message?

Set Prompt=never in /etc/update-manager/release-upgrades, then check it with grep -i '^Prompt' /etc/update-manager/release-upgrades. The message stops after the MOTD helper refreshes its cached result. This does not affect unattended security updates. Set the value back to lts before you upgrade.

What is the difference between Prompt=lts and Prompt=normal?

lts offers only the next LTS release, so a 24.04 server goes straight to 26.04. normal offers the next supported release of any kind, interim releases included, so a server steps through each release in turn. Use lts on a production server.