Debian – Upgrading kernel on debian 8 Jessie

debiandebian-jessiedockerkernellinux-kernel

I have a Debian 8 Jessie server, and I'd like to upgrade my kernel to at least version 4, in order to use overlay fs with Docker.

My current kernel is:

$ uname -r
3.16.0-4-amd64

I followed a guide which stated to add the backports repository to the /etc/apt/sources.list file. I added this line:

deb http://httpredir.debian.org/debian jessie-backports main

I did an apt-get update and this is now the output of apt-cache search linux-image:

linux-headers-3.16.0-4-amd64 - Header files for Linux 3.16.0-4-amd64
linux-image-3.16.0-4-amd64 - Linux 3.16 for 64-bit PCs
linux-image-3.16.0-4-amd64-dbg - Debugging symbols for Linux 3.16.0-4-amd64
linux-image-amd64 - Linux for 64-bit PCs (meta-package)
linux-image-amd64-dbg - Debugging symbols for Linux amd64 configuration (meta-package)
nvidia-kernel-3.16.0-4-amd64 - NVIDIA binary kernel module for Linux 3.16.0-4-amd64
linux-headers-4.8.0-0.bpo.2-amd64 - Header files for Linux 4.8.0-0.bpo.2-amd64
linux-headers-4.8.0-0.bpo.2-rt-amd64 - Header files for Linux 4.8.0-0.bpo.2-rt-amd64
linux-headers-4.9.0-0.bpo.1-amd64 - Header files for Linux 4.9.0-0.bpo.1-amd64
linux-headers-4.9.0-0.bpo.1-rt-amd64 - Header files for Linux 4.9.0-0.bpo.1-rt-amd64
linux-image-4.8.0-0.bpo.2-amd64-dbg - Debugging symbols for Linux 4.8.0-0.bpo.2-amd64
linux-image-4.8.0-0.bpo.2-amd64-unsigned - Linux 4.8 for 64-bit PCs
linux-image-4.8.0-0.bpo.2-rt-amd64-dbg - Debugging symbols for Linux 4.8.0-0.bpo.2-rt-amd64
linux-image-4.8.0-0.bpo.2-rt-amd64-unsigned - Linux 4.8 for 64-bit PCs, PREEMPT_RT
linux-image-4.9.0-0.bpo.1-amd64-dbg - Debugging symbols for Linux 4.9.0-0.bpo.1-amd64
linux-image-4.9.0-0.bpo.1-amd64-unsigned - Linux 4.9 for 64-bit PCs
linux-image-4.9.0-0.bpo.1-rt-amd64-dbg - Debugging symbols for Linux 4.9.0-0.bpo.1-rt-amd64
linux-image-4.9.0-0.bpo.1-rt-amd64-unsigned - Linux 4.9 for 64-bit PCs, PREEMPT_RT
linux-headers-4.8.0-2-grsec-amd64 - Header files for Linux 4.8.0-2-grsec-amd64
linux-image-4.8.0-2-grsec-amd64 - Linux 4.8 for 64-bit PCs, Grsecurity protection
linux-image-grsec-amd64 - Linux image meta-package, grsec featureset
linux-image-rt-amd64 - Linux for 64-bit PCs (meta-package), PREEMPT_RT
linux-image-rt-amd64-dbg - Debugging symbols for Linux rt-amd64 configuration (meta-package)
linux-image-4.8.0-0.bpo.2-amd64 - Linux 4.8 for 64-bit PCs (signed)
linux-image-4.8.0-0.bpo.2-rt-amd64 - Linux 4.8 for 64-bit PCs, PREEMPT_RT (signed)
linux-image-4.9.0-0.bpo.1-amd64 - Linux 4.9 for 64-bit PCs (signed)
linux-image-4.9.0-0.bpo.1-rt-amd64 - Linux 4.9 for 64-bit PCs, PREEMPT_RT (signed)

The guide said to continue with

sudo apt-get install linux-image-amd64/jessie-backports

I did it, and I got this output:

$ sudo apt-get install linux-image-amd64/jessie-backports

Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Selected version '4.9+78~bpo8+1' (Debian Backports:jessie-backports [amd64]) for 'linux-image-amd64'
Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have
requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable
distribution that some required packages have not yet been created
or been moved out of Incoming.
The following information may help to resolve the situation:

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
 linux-image-amd64 : Depends: linux-image-4.9.0-0.bpo.1-amd64
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.

What should I do from here? Should I explicitly install linux-image-4.9.0-0.bpo.1-rt-amd64 instead of linux-image-amd64? If yes, should I install other packages along with it?

p.s. Does installing a new kernel automatically remove the older one or do I have to remove the older one manually?

Best Answer

I switched to the backport kernel for the same reason as you (docker). The backport kernel has dependencies on packages which are installed already, but not in a version that the backport kernel needs. The newer versions are also available in the backports repository. However, apt-get will not install dependencies automatically from the backports repo (unless configured to do so). In other words, you need to install the dependencies explicitly, together with the backport kernel.

The dependencies are

linux-base (I am sure about that)
kmod
initramfs-tools

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Debian – update from debian lenny to squeeze

It seems you started off with the recommended procedure for upgrading which is great. I recommend trying to stick to that instead of prematurely doing a dist-upgrade. This procedure is worked out by testing on thousands of systems and is what we think is your best chance of a smooth upgrade.

In this case when you are doing apt-get upgrade we are EXPECTING lots of packages to be held back. That is by design. We want to do just a minimal upgrade in order to get the new kernel and udev installed, then reboot, then do the rest of the upgrade with dist-upgrade.

You should be concentrating on this error:

linux-image-2.6-amd64: Depends: linux-image-2.6.32-5-amd64 but it is not going to be installed

There is some reason why apt doesn't want to install linux-image-2.6.32-5-amd64. Find out by trying to install it directly with apt-get install linux-image-2.6.32-5-amd64, That will either install it, or will tell you specifically what is wrong with this package. When this results in a problem with another package, do the same with this package, by trying to install it directly, until you reach a root cause. Once the kernel is successfully installed, proceed with the upgrade instructions from there.

One artifact that doing this will have which may be undesired is marking the linux-image-2.6.32-5-amd64 package as automatically installed. After the upgrade is complete, and you are happy with the results, you might run apt-mark auto linux-image-2.6.32-5-amd64 to mark this package as automatically installed.

The reason that /etc/debian_version reads 6.0.5 is that you already update the base_files package. This is not a surpise.

The problems with mixing aptitude and apt-get were resolved with apt-get version 7.0 a few years ago, you should feel free to mix their use at will. In fact, Debian recommended aptitude for upgrading from one major release to another in the past and now recommends apt-get, so clearly Debian is recommending using both. We will recommend whichever one seems to work better for a given upgrade. On the lenny->squeeze upgrade, aptitude tends to think "too hard" about finding an optimal upgrade path, and the more simple dependency resolution in apt-get works for more people.

Debian 8 Jessie with older Kernel – Do I have to expect problems

You indicate that the packages upgraded correctly, and you can use it right now. So if it works, you can use it like that. However, I suspect it is not officially supported.

I take it that your hosting provider uses OpenVZ (or it's commercial equivalent, Odin Virtuozzo), or some other Operating System-level virtualization (as opposed to paravirtualization, like Xen of KVM provides).

For me it, worked in practice, and since I don't see any problem, I'll use it with the older kernel. I followed the guide at http://justinfranks.com/linux-administration/upgrade-openvz-vps-from-debian-7-wheezy-64-bit-to-debian-8-jessie-64-bit (albeit my VPS is 32-bit instead of 64-bit).

That said, I suspect this is not officially supported by either Debian or Odin Virtuozzo/OpenVZ.

If you want official support, you should wait till your hosting provider offers Debian 8 support, but I suspect that you will have to reinstall your VPS in that case. They are probably waiting for the support of Debian 8 from OpenVZ or Virtuozzo. It seems that support is coming soon: See https://wiki.openvz.org/Download/template/precreated and http://kb.odin.com/en/125613.

Best Answer

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Debian – update from debian lenny to squeeze

Debian 8 Jessie with older Kernel – Do I have to expect problems

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