qubes-doc/managing-os/debian-template-upgrade-8.md
Nicklaus McClendon 23a1779b96
Updated Upgrading Debian 8 with sound fix
Added the information from the mailing list on how to fix sound in Debian Stretch templates.
2016-05-23 18:13:05 -05:00

5.0 KiB

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doc Upgrading the Debian 8 Template /doc/debian-template-upgrade-8/
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Upgrading the Debian 8 Template

Disclaimer: Debian 9 (Stretch) is marked testing for a reason. You may notice stability problems when using it.

Summary: Upgrading the Standard Debian 8 Template to Debian 9

    [user@dom0 ~]$ qvm-clone debian-8 debian-9
    [user@dom0 ~]$ qvm-run -a debian-9 gnome-terminal
    [user@debian-9 ~]$ sudo sed -i 's/jessie/stretch/g' /etc/apt/sources.list
    [user@debian-9 ~]$ sudo sed -i 's/jessie/stretch/g' /etc/apt/sources.list.d/qubes-r3.list
    [user@debian-9 ~]$ sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade -y
    [user@debian-9 ~]$ sudo apt-get autoremove

(Shut down TemplateVM by any normal means.)

    [user@dom0 ~]$ qvm-trim-template debian-9

(Done.)

Detailed: Upgrading the Standard Debian 8 Template to Debian 9

These instructions will show you how to upgrade the standard Debian 8 TemplateVM to Debian 9. The same general procedure may be used to upgrade any template based on the standard Debian 8 template.

  1. Ensure the existing template is not running.

    [user@dom0 ~]$ qvm-shutdown debian-8
    
  2. Clone the existing template and start a terminal in the new template.

    [user@dom0 ~]$ qvm-clone debian-8 debian-9
    [user@dom0 ~]$ qvm-run -a debian-9 gnome-terminal
    
  3. Update your apt repositories to use stretch instead of jessie (This can be done manually with a text editor, but sed can be used to automatically update the files.)

    [user@debian-9 ~]$ sudo sed -i 's/jessie/stretch/g' /etc/apt/sources.list
    [user@debian-9 ~]$ sudo sed -i 's/jessie/stretch/g' /etc/apt/sources.list.d/qubes-r3.list
    
  4. Update the package lists and upgrade to Debian 9. During the process, it will likely prompt to overwrite two files, qubes-r3.list and pulse/client.conf. qubes-r3.list can be overwritten, while pulse/client.conf need to left as the currently installed version.

    [user@debian-9 ~]$ sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade -y
    
  5. Remove unnecessary packages that were previously installed

    [user@debian-9 ~]$ sudo apt-get autoremove
    
  6. Shutdown the new TemplateVM via dom0 command line or Qubes VM Manager;

    [user@dom0 ~]$ qvm-shutdown debian-9
    
  7. Trim the new template (see Compacting the Upgraded Template for details and other options).

    [user@dom0 ~]$ qvm-trim-template debian-9
    
  8. (Optional) Remove the old default template.

    [user@dom0 ~]$ sudo yum remove qubes-template-debian-8
    

Compacting the Upgraded Template

Neither fstrim nor the discard mount option works on the TemplateVM's root filesystem, so when a file is removed in the template, space is not freed in dom0. This means that the template will use about twice as much space as is really necessary after upgrading.

If you have at least qubes-core-dom0-2.1.68 installed or are on Qubes R3.0, you can use the qvm-trim-template tool:

    [user@dom0 ~]$ qvm-trim-template debian-9

If you do not have qubes-core-dom0-2.1.68 or are on older Qubes version, you can compact the root.img manually. To do this, you will need about 15GB (the TemplateVM's max size + the actually used space there) free space in dom0.

  1. Start the template and fill all the free space with zeros, for example with:

    [user@debian-9 ~]$ dd if=/dev/zero of=/var/tmp/zero
    
  2. Wait for the "No space left on device" error. Then:

    [user@debian-9 ~]$ rm -f /var/tmp/zero
    
  3. Shut down the template and all VMs based on it. Then:

    [user@dom0 ~]$ cd /var/lib/qubes/vm-templates/debian-9
    [user@dom0 ~]$ cp --sparse=always root.img root.img.new
    [user@dom0 ~]$ mv root.img.new root.img
    

Additional Information

It should be noted that Debian 9 (Stretch) is currently marked testing and should be treat as such. For projects that need absolute stability, upgrading may not be the best option.

Debian Stretch packages were first made available in the Qubes R3.1 repositories.

If sound is not working, you may need to enable the Qubes testing repository to get the testing version of qubes-gui-agent. This can be done by editing the /etc/apt/sources.list.d/qubes-r3.list file and uncommenting the Qubes Updates Candidates repo.

Relevant Mailing List Discussions