SB-7 2019-03-28 Debian repository removals

Service bulletin: SB-7 Date: March 28, 2019

Debian 8 “Jessie”

On March 24, 2019, Debian removed some non-LTS architectures of Jessie from the mirror network. This includes the jessie-updates repository specified on any nodes manually provisioned using the sources in the Node setup tab of a space.

While this does not directly affect bonding—which does not strictly depend on any packages offered in jessie-updates—it may cause some warnings when upgrading or provisioning nodes.

The warning will manifest itself when running the apt-get update command, with output along these lines:

W: Failed to fetch http://http.debian.net/debian/dists/jessie-updates/main/binary-amd64/Packages 404  Not Found [IP: 2604:1380:1000:8100::1 80]

Solutions

  1. Ignore the warning: the apt-get update command actually does refresh the other repositories you have defined even when this warning occurs, so you can continue with the subsequent steps for upgrading.

  2. Remove the jessie-updates repository from /etc/apt/sources.list and then re-run apt-get update.

  3. (Optional) Add the jessie archives repository to /etc/apt/sources.list. This archive repository contains the packages that jessie-updates previously held. The line replacing the one containing jessie-updates should read:

    deb http://archive.debian.org/debian/ jessie main contrib non-free

  4. Bonding 6.4 will introduce management of the apt repositories through Salt, which will resolve this issue

Debian 7 “Wheezy”

On March 24, 2019, Debian removed all of Wheezy from the mirror network. This includes the wheezy, wheezy-updates and debian-security updates, which would be specified on any nodes manually provisioned using the sources in the Node setup tab of a space.

This prevents upgrades of existing Wheezy nodes. Some initial warnings will manifest itself when running the apt-get update command, with output along these lines:

W: Failed to fetch http://http.debian.net/debian/dists/wheezy/main/binary-amd64/Packages 404  Not Found [IP: 2a04:4e42:d::204 80]
W: Failed to fetch http://http.debian.net/debian/dists/wheezy-updates/main/binary-amd64/Packages 404  Not Found [IP: 2a04:4e42:d::204 80]
W: Failed to fetch http://security.debian.org/dists/wheezy/updates/main/binary-amd64/Packages 404  Not Found [IP: 2a04:4e42:d::204 80]

Running the apt-get install bonding command will subsequently fail with an error message along these lines:

E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages

Solution

  1. Remove the wheezy, wheezy-updates, and debian-security repository from /etc/apt/sources.list:

    # deb http://http.debian.net/debian wheezy main contrib non-free
# deb http://http.debian.net/debian wheezy-updates main contrib non-free
# deb http://security.debian.org/ wheezy/updates main contrib non-free

  2. Add the wheezy archives repository to /etc/apt/sources.list. This archive repository contains the packages that the removed repositories previously held:

    deb http://archive.debian.org/debian/ wheezy main contrib non-free

  3. Re-run apt-get update.

  4. Bonding 6.4 will introduce management of the apt repositories through Salt, which will resolve this issue