MathWorksUpdateInstaller and R2025a in Linux

Hi!

Until now (e.g., with R2024b), whenever I needed to update my MATLAB in Linux, I used to run

sudo /usr/local/MATLAB/R2024b/bin/glnxa64/MathWorksUpdateInstaller

but I cannot find the equivalent executable for R2025a. Did it change name/location? Or what is the suggested update approach, now?

Note that I can't simply run the updater from the MATLAB desktop, because as normal user I don't have privilegies to write in the MATLAB root directory. And I can't start MATLAB as root, either, because of the name in the license.

Thanks in advance!

[scivision]

I notice the same missing MathWorksUpdateInstaller starting with R2025a.

ls(fullfile(matlabroot, 'bin', computer('arch'), 'MathWorksUpdateInstaller'))

[Star Strider]

I didn't have any problems installing R2025a Update 1 yesterday in Ubuntu 24.04 (and all recent updates to it and its functions). Just clicking on the 'bell' icon in the MATLAB toolstrip and launching the updater worked. It even re-launched MATLAB after installing the update.

I'm not certain how my installation differs from yours, so I don't know how applicable my experience is to you.

[DG]

I guess you either installed MATLAB as a normal user in a non-standard directory (what's the output of "matlabroot"?) or your user has extra privilegies and you don't need to sudo to write in /usr

[Star Strider]

The matlabroot return is:

'/home/user_name/Downloads/matlab_R2025a_Linux/bin/glnxa64'

because I could not get the installer to recognise the sudo directory that I created for it, since it kept telling me that the directory did not exist, even though I verified that it did indeed exist. The installer created this essentially on its own, when everything else I had attempted failed. MATLAB itself is installed in usr/local/bin.

To launch it, I use $ matlab (not $ ./matlab that returns -- bash: ./matlab: No such file or directory). I'm not certain what's going on with it, however MATLAB runs successfully and the updates install without problems (at least Update 1 did).

I'm relatively new at Linux. There's still a lot to learn for me.

EDIT --

This currently seems to be a more widesprezd problem -- How can I install an update on R2025a on Linux?.

.

[Josh G.]

@Star Strider Matlab installs by default to /usr/local/MATLAB/R2025a, which needs root privileges to modify. I think I've seen the installer suggest changing the install directory to something under /home/$(whoami) in the past if you run it without sudo, but that's not the default.

I'm concerned that the only way to update may be to run Matlab itself as root, which is a serious security liability (and as implied in this question might not even work on non-enterprise licenses), or to change the install directory to something under /home, which would be really annoying since it's not a standard place to install programs and there's no reason Mathworks can't continue to provide a standalone updater (or better, an update script that doesn't require running a graphical program as root in the first place).

[Josh G.]

After looking into this a little more, it looks like MathWorksUpdateInstaller has moved to ~/.MathWorks/ServiceHost/-mw_shared_installs/v2025.5.1.1/bin/glnxa64/. But if I try running it by itself, with or without sudo, with or without Matlab running already, it runs into error 1804.

[Star Strider]

Having MATLAB open is probably required. When I updated R2025a earlier this week, I just clicked on the 'notifications' (bell) icon in the upper-right corner of the MATLAB GUI, then scrolled down to and clicked on 'Install Updates'. The updater closed MATLAB, installed Update 1, and re-launched MATLAB when it finished. (Ubuntu 24.04)

I'm not at all certain that I initially installed R2025a 'correctly'. Whatever I did, everything seems to worrk.

Some sort of clarification (extensive discussion) from TMW on all of this would be extremely helpful, especially for those of us who are relatively new to Linux.

Answer 1

[Josh G.]

I was able to get the update installed. For context, this is on an enterprise shared license system, so named user licenses may have slightly different paths.

MathWorksUpdateInstaller, when launched from within Matlab, is passed a bunch of arguments: destination, entitlement ID, and a few other things. You can see this if you open htop in a terminal and find the processes that are launched when you open the updater. Apparently it's now necessary to pass in at least the destination, and from there the updater can figure out the other information it needs.

With Matlab R2025a open, from within ~/.MathWorks/ServiceHost/-mw_shared_installs/v2025.5.1.1/bin/glnxa64, I ran

sudo ./MathWorksUpdateInstaller --destination=/usr/local/MATLAB/R2025a

I then closed Matlab when the update installer window launched, and the update completed successfully. I'm not sure if it's necessary to have Matlab open when you do this or not; as of R2025a, Matlab now seems to launch a server and a client. The server may need to be running when MathWorksUpdateInstaller is launched, but this would need someone else to test and verify.

[DG]

Thanks @Josh G., that works indeed. I ran the installer with MATLAB closed, I can confirm there's no need for it to be open. The only minor issue is that, after the installation was complete, it launched MATLAB as root without asking about it.

Thanks again!

[scivision]

Thanks Josh G, based on your information I made a platform-agnostic Matlab release upgrade script: https://github.com/geospace-code/matlab-stdlib/blob/main/scripts/MatlabReleaseUpgrade.m