Server O/S Recommendations

redgoblin · 11-15-2007, 08:57 AM

Sorry for the slow response. Not looked at this thread in a while.

The bad news is you haven't upgraded. The good news is you haven't broken anything.

It sounds like you've done an upgrade against the old stable version. So essentially you've updated all the security patches. You need to update your sources list first. This is covered in the release notes I linked to previously (section 4.4.1). I appreciate that you probably want to dive straight in and just get the upgrade done, but doing so isn't a trivial matter.

Read the release notes before you go any further.

If you're still having problems than post the output of this command;

Code:

cat /etc/apt/sources.list

Hammad101 · 11-15-2007, 09:37 AM

guys i'm really sorry to bug

but please sort it out

Hammad101 · 11-15-2007, 11:09 PM

$cat /etc/apt/sources.list
#deb file:///cdrom/ sarge main

deb http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian/ sarge main
deb-src http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian/ sarge main

deb http://security.debian.org/ sarge/updates main

Asymmetry · 11-16-2007, 12:31 AM

Change all "sarge" to "etch" and try the upgrade instructions again.

Asymmetry · 11-16-2007, 12:33 AM

Basically, what you tried to do was upgrade from sarge to... sarge. Changing sarge to etch in your sources file tells it to pull the etch packages and upgrade.

redgoblin · 11-16-2007, 03:43 AM

@Hammad101

I'll stress this one more time; read the release notes and follow their instructions before doing an upgrade. I note from your sources list that you use the German FTP site. The release notes and upgrade instructions are available in German if that helps;

http://www.debian.org/releases/stabl...rading.de.html

I will give you some instruction here, but these assume that you have a normal setup. If something goes wrong I may not be able to help you from afar, via a forum, posting every couple of days.

1) As root use an editor to open /etc/apt/sources.list and change the file to look exactly like my example below.

Code:

# Main sources for Etch
deb http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian/ etch main 
deb-src http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian/ etch main 

# Security updates for Etch
deb http://security.debian.org/ etch/updates main
deb-src http://security.debian.org/ etch/updates main

Save and close the file. Double check that you've definitly made the changes by using cat again to view the contents of the file.

2) It is advised not to have an X session running while doing a distibution upgrade. Therefore we'll do this from the terminal. Close all applications and log out of your desktop session. Press ctrl+alt+F1 to access the first terminal.

Log in as root and issue the following command to stop your X session.

Code:

/etc/init.d/gdm stop

Change gdm for kdm if you use that instead. If you're unsure issue both commands.

3) Now get rid of any old packages you have cached. Use the command

Code:

aptitude clean

A distribution upgrade requires a lot of space. So free up what you can.

4) You now need to get a list of all the new packages that are available. To do this run

Code:

aptitude update

5) Finally upgrade all the packages that you can. To do this run

Code:

aptitude dist-upgrade

You might want to cross your fingers while this process. It will take some time.

You will probably have to do a reboot at some point as the kernel needs to be upgraded.

Good luck.

Hammad101 · 11-17-2007, 11:21 AM

Thanks You So So So SO Much for your time and help

I now got it updated to Etch.

One problem remains please have a look here

Hammad101 · 11-20-2007, 12:52 PM

Code:

127-0-0-1:/# apt-get install              
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 12 not upgraded.
2 not fully installed or removed.
Need to get 0B of archives.
After unpacking 0B of additional disk space will be used.
Setting up exim4-config (4.63-17) ...
Invalid value for dc_use_split_config: "false!", exiting.
dpkg: error processing exim4-config (--configure):
 subprocess post-installation script returned error exit status 1
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of exim4-base:
 exim4-base depends on exim4-config (>= 4.30) | exim4-config-2; however:
  Package exim4-config is not configured yet.
  Package exim4-config-2 is not installed.
  Package exim4-config which provides exim4-config-2 is not configured yet.
dpkg: error processing exim4-base (--configure):
 dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
Errors were encountered while processing:
 exim4-config
 exim4-base
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

any help on this

redgoblin · 11-21-2007, 08:45 AM

You seem to have encountered a problem upgrading from exim3 to exim4. Had you manually changed any configuration for exim?

Start by configuring exim4-config as this seems to be causing the problem. Use;

Code:

dpkg-reconfigure exim4-config -p low

Answer all the questions best you can and then try apt-get again.

Hammad101 · 11-21-2007, 09:03 AM

Code:

127-0-0-1:~# dpkg-reconfigure exim4-config -p low
/usr/sbin/dpkg-reconfigure: exim4-config is broken or not fully installed

I don't think i did anything with exim during the update..
it just been coming through ..

i got plesk installed 8.2.1 if that makes any difference.

redgoblin · 11-22-2007, 06:06 AM

I'm not familiar Plesk. But from looking at their site I can't think how it would cause a problem.

When you where running Sarge did you every upgrade exim to exim4? If not then the only possibility that comes to mind is that exim4 is trying to use exim3's configuration. Possibly for a seamless upgrade.

First, let's see what exim packages you have. Paste the outcome of;

Code:

dpkg -l|grep exim

Second, we need to know what configuration you have. Paste the outcome of;

Code:

ls /etc/exi* -da

Hopefully this might shed some light on things.

Hammad101 · 11-22-2007, 07:19 AM

Code:

127-0-0-1:~# dpkg -l|grep exim
iU  exim4-base                       4.63-17                             support files for all exim MTA (v4) packages
iF  exim4-config                     4.63-17                             configuration for the exim MTA (v4)



127-0-0-1:~# ls /etc/exi* -da
/etc/exim4

I didn't do anything with exim update (manually)

thanks for helping me out mate..

redgoblin · 11-22-2007, 03:03 PM

No problem with the help. I'm kind of seeing it as a challenge now

Right. I did a bit of playing around with aptitude and I've got one more suggestion that might work. What we need to do is completely purge exim off of your system and then put it back. Does this system handle email? If so things are going to stop working for a short bit. Plus you'll need to completely reconfigure your mail settings. If you haven't set up any special mail settings you should be fine. So proceed at your own risk.

First copy off whatever exim config you might have in case you want to refer to it later. All this is done as root;

Code:

cp /etc/exim4 ~/old_exim_config -r

Now we replace exim with a different Mail Transfer Agent (MTA). This part might not work (but hey, we can but try)

Code:

aptitude install nullmailer

Aptitude will ask you if you want to remove parts of exim and install some packages. Say yes. If this returns with a fail, go no further and post the output here.

Now we need to completely purge all of exim;

Code:

aptitude purge exim4 exim4-base exim4-config exim4-daemon-light exim exim4-config-2

Say yes to all the removes. Next we want to clean out all the down loaded packages you might have ...

Code:

aptitude clean

... and make sure you have an up to date package list;

Code:

aptitude update

To make sure we have no part of exim left remove it's configuration if any.

Code:

rm /etc/exim4 -r

The rm command might complain that there's nothing to remove. That's fine (in fact that's quite good).

There should now be no remnants of exim left. To check this we update the locate database ...

Code:

updatedb

... and go searching for bits of exim with;

Code:

locate exim

You should get no results from that command except for ones starting /root/old_exim_config If you get any other files listed then something broke when removing the exim packages. Don't go any further and post the results of locate here.

I noticed from one of your earlier posts that you have some packages that aren't completely upgraded. Well fix those first with;

Code:

aptitude dist-upgrade

Now all your packages should be upgraded and working. However, the MTA you have installed isn't very suitable for a server. So we need to put exim back on. This one command should now work

Code:

aptitude intall exim4

It'll ask you if you want to remove nullmailer and install several exim packages. Say yes and choose default settings when they come up.

You should (fingers crossed) now have a fully working system. If you don't ... well we'll consider that if it comes up.

I'll keep my fingers crossed for you.

Hammad101 · 11-23-2007, 01:01 PM

Hi,

Did it all and was sorted and found out plesk was screwed and won't start..

therefore i had a server reinstall with etch. now configuring it.

thanks for the time n help