News/Buster deprecation

From Wikitech

Support for Debian Buster ends on June 30th, 2024. This page tracks our efforts to stop using Buster on cloud-vps. Tasks tracking this work can be found on the Cloud-VPS (Debian Buster Deprecation) workboard.

Tell me exactly what I need to do

Cloud VPS project maintainers

  • Check toolforge:os-deprecation for reports about your project(s)
  • For each reported deprecated instance:
    • Create a new instance using Debian Bookworm (longest time until future deprecation) or Debian Bullseye
    • Move content and configuration from the old Buster instance to the new instance. Consider using a Cinder volume to store and move your files.
    • If you are using a web proxy on the old instance, delete the proxy and the add a new one with the same name pointing at the new instance
    • Shutdown the old Buster instance
    • Update any maintainer documentation to reference the new instance rather than the old Buster instance
    • When you are sure you have all the content and configuration moved, delete the old Buster instance

If you need additional quota to create new virtual machine instances, follow the instructions on Phabricator to request a temporary quota increase.

Toolforge tool maintainers

No action is needed for Toolforge users.

Why are we doing this?

On September 10, 2022 the Debian project stopped providing security patch support for the Debian 10 "Buster" release. It did, however, move to LTS support and will receive updates other than backports from the LTS team until end of June 2024.

Once Buster is no longer supported, Servers using Buster will become subject to ever more security vulnerabilities and increasingly difficult to maintain. Eventually the cloud-vps staff will find it necessary to stop and delete such VMs in order to prevent them from become security risks to cloud-vps and the greater internet.

See also