[portalgod]

I'm confused how an apt-get upgrade is working for some users and some not. For example, my apt-get update && apt-get upgrade complains about upgrading locales and glibc. Spry has indicated upgrading these packages will break your VPS.

Have those who have apt-get upgrade'd pinned locales and did not upgrade glibc? Has it broken any of your packages?

Have those who have apt-get dist-upgraded pinned any particular packages?

[roquette]

Hi, portalgod.

Before my upgrade I asked Spry. See what they replayed to me.

/******* Spry replay ****************/
Hello,

Thank you for contacting Spry.

Yes you can upgrade your system from Sarge to Etch.

Before upgrading to Etch I would like to suggest you
to check below url for more information on this.
-------------------------------------------------
debianadmin . com / upgrade-sarge-to-etch . html (remove the white spaces)
/******* end ****************/

I had some complains about some packages (can not remember which ones), but after some google I finally upgraded my Debian.
I think the only thing you can not upgrade is your kernel, because it is shared with other vps's.

[portalgod]

Originally Posted by roquette

Hi, portalgod.

Before my upgrade I asked Spry. See what they replayed to me.

/******* Spry replay ****************/
Hello,

Thank you for contacting Spry.

Yes you can upgrade your system from Sarge to Etch.

Before upgrading to Etch I would like to suggest you
to check below url for more information on this.
-------------------------------------------------
debianadmin . com / upgrade-sarge-to-etch . html (remove the white spaces)
/******* end ****************/

I had some complains about some packages (can not remember which ones), but after some google I finally upgraded my Debian.
I think the only thing you can not upgrade is your kernel, because it is shared with other vps's.

Did you pin any packages before dist-upgrading? Post a dpkg -l so we can see what versions of packages you're running. Also have you rebooted the system since your dist-upgrade? Post a uname -a also.

I also find it odd that Spry said it was ok for you to dist-upgrade. Here is an exceprt from a ticket I had open. I do respect the support's advice and have not done a dist-upgrade.

"Do NOT modify the installed libc libraries as this WILL render your VPS unusable. Use apt's "pinning" feature to keep the installed "locales" package at its currently installed version and do NOT update glibc at all. It is required to remain at the current version to be compatible with the Virtuozzo kernel."

[portalgod]

What is the offical Spry word on doing apt-get dist-upgrades? The top post in this thread gives guidance to NOT do dist-upgrades but it is outdated at mid-2005. Since then users have posted success stories of doing apt-get dist-upgrades from sarge to etch. Has spry evaluated any of these upgrades or tried to perform on of their own and have further information?

[Lyle@Spry]

Hello,

Some users have reported success, but others have also reported massive failures. We have attempted dist-upgrades with mixed results. (Depends mostly on what packages are currently installed, and if key packages like glibc and kernel are held in current installed version.)

You are welcome to try dist-upgrade, but we must stress that you should make a backup of your important files before doing so. Create a ticket for our support technicians if you need your VPS reinstalled afterwards.

As we cannot be certain that all Debian VPS's hosted by Spry are 100% safe to upgrade with dist-upgrade, we still do not recommend using apt-get dist-upgrade on a production VPS. If packages are installed that are not compatible with running inside a Virtuozzo virtual environment (and no, we do not have a list of all such packages, being that the full Debian archive contains over 24000 installable packages), the VPS can only be repaired by 1) Reinstalling it or 2) Restoring from a previous backup. Keep in mind our backup system can take several hours to restore an entire VPS, so make a backup of your important files before trying this. The fastest path to recovery then is reinstallation of your VPS, and restoration of your backup.