Apt-get update getting 404 on debian lenny

aptdebian-lenny

Here is my /etc/apt/sources.list

###### Debian Main Repos
deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ lenny main contrib non-free

###### Debian Update Repos
deb http://security.debian.org/ lenny/updates main contrib non-free
deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ lenny-proposed-updates main contrib non-free

When I do:

# apt-get update

I'm getting some good lines, then:

Err http://ftp.us.debian.org lenny/contrib Packages
  404 Not Found [IP: 35.9.37.225 80]
Err http://ftp.us.debian.org lenny/non-free Packages
  404 Not Found [IP: 35.9.37.225 80]
Err http://ftp.us.debian.org lenny-proposed-updates/main Packages
  404 Not Found [IP: 35.9.37.225 80]
Err http://ftp.us.debian.org lenny-proposed-updates/contrib Packages
  404 Not Found [IP: 35.9.37.225 80]
Err http://ftp.us.debian.org lenny-proposed-updates/non-free Packages
  404 Not Found [IP: 35.9.37.225 80]
Err http://ftp.us.debian.org lenny/main Packages
  404 Not Found [IP: 35.9.37.225 80]
W: Failed to fetch http://security.debian.org/dists/lenny/updates/main/binary-i386/Packages  404 Not Found [IP: 149.20.20.6 80]    
W: Failed to fetch http://security.debian.org/dists/lenny/updates/contrib/binary-i386/Packages  404 Not Found [IP: 149.20.20.6 80]    
W: Failed to fetch http://security.debian.org/dists/lenny/updates/non-free/binary-i386/Packages  404 Not Found [IP: 149.20.20.6 80]    
W: Failed to fetch http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/dists/lenny/contrib/binary-i386/Packages  404 Not Found [IP: 35.9.37.225 80]    
W: Failed to fetch http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/dists/lenny/non-free/binary-i386/Packages  404 Not Found [IP: 35.9.37.225 80]    
W: Failed to fetch http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/dists/lenny-proposed-updates/main/binary-i386/Packages  404 Not Found [IP: 35.9.37.225 80]    
W: Failed to fetch http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/dists/lenny-proposed-updates/contrib/binary-i386/Packages  404 Not Found [IP: 35.9.37.225 80]    
W: Failed to fetch http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/dists/lenny-proposed-updates/non-free/binary-i386/Packages  404 Not Found [IP: 35.9.37.225 80]    
W: Failed to fetch http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/dists/lenny/main/binary-i386/Packages  404 Not Found [IP: 35.9.37.225 80]    
E: Some index files failed to download, they have been ignored, or old ones used instead.

Best Answer

From a little poking around, it appears to be a problem with the Debian mirrors. According to the mirror info, lenny should be available, although you might need to change each instance of 'lenny' with 'oldstable' in /etc/apt/sources.list. However, pulling up 3 mirrors have all shown that 'lenny' and 'oldstable' are no longer listed.

Update: I did a little more poking around, and found that the USC Mirror looks to still have 'lenny' listed. Comment out your existing entries in sources.list and duplicate them the:

deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/

Replaced with:

deb ftp://mirrors.usc.edu/pub/linux/distributions/debian/

See if that does the trick.

With a little luck this is a temporary issue, and will resolve itself in a few days.

Update 2: It looks like this is not temporary, and http://archive.debian.org is the best place to pull packages for Lenny. Also, it looks like security support for Lenny was ended on Feb. 12th 2012, although they did release 5.0.10, a point update, on March 10th, 2012.

It would probably be worth planning out an upgrade, especially for any Internet/public facing servers.

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