Upgrade from Debian 7 to 10

[extraspecialbitter]

I've been running a "droplet" on Digital Ocean for several years without issues. It's a low-volume Apache website with a small MySQL database and some mail forwarding configurations, so it's needed very little care and feeding, but when I went to see what version of Debian it was running, I was a bit alarmed to see that it was running 7.11! I upgraded my personal desktop to Debian 10 from Debian 9 a few months ago. My question is this: would an upgrade from Debian 7 to 10 be just a matter of updating my apt sources file and running "sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade" or are there other considerations? I'll do the obvious - taking a full backup, for example - but was wondering if such a large jump invited any other perils.

[kedaha]

Not possible.
You'd have to upgrade first to Debian 8, then 9 and then to 10.

[Deb-fan]

^ +1 them and well you too OP, yeah guessing it'd end up a mess and wouldn't bother attempting it anyway. Sounds like it's working fine as is and isn't really an important production machine so honestly would probably just leave it alone if it's doing a good job for you. Good software doesn't stop being good or quit working just cause a newer version comes out. Though I could be missing something here, like any major security issues which have cropped up related to the software you're using on that system.

Might want to address that on a piece by piece of the important software you're using. Personally wouldn't want to even deal with an audit for the thing though either. Overall far as I'm aware the approved method to upgrades between major releases remains a fresh install and would opt for that route.

[andre@home]

If safety is important you miss 1 version.
I always follow the LTS line of updating, so meaning that your are ~1.5 year behind schedule, but only 1 version...:
https://wiki.debian.org/LTS

Debian 7 “Wheezy” i386, amd64, armel and armhf from 26th April 2016 to 31st May 2018
Debian 8 “Jessie” i386, amd64, armel and armhf from 17th June 2018 to June 30, 2020
Debian 9 “Stretch” i386, amd64, armel, armhf and arm64 (to review before start) 2020 to June 2022

So in principle you are on the safe side till mid 2020 if you upgrade to Debian 8.

Keep this LTS page in mind and you're ok.


PS: Make good backups before you upgrade!
As e.g. Apache and Webdav config files are different in 8 compared to 7.
My webdav data servers need both (Apache and Webdav) so I prefer always a clean install, then I immediately learn what the differences are in the Apache and Webdav config files and I know where they are (if moved) and what the new code should be.
It's a matter of choice, up to you

[extraspecialbitter]

Thanks for posting the Debian LTS page - I've bookmarked it.

And while I subscribe to the axiom "if it ain't broke, don't fix it", I don't love the idea of using an operating system that is beyond end-of-life. It seems I can upgrade from Debian 7 to 8 (Apache considerations notwithstanding) to get back to a supportable system and then take it from there.

My thanks to everyone for the feedback!

Paul

[Soul Singin']

a small MySQL database

If you're using phpMyAdmin, you will have to use the package from Debian Stretch. (It's not available in Buster).

I got it to work, but I had to edit some of the files. I did that sometime ago, so I do not remember the details, but I made backups of the original files. Below are the diffs:

Code: Select all

$ pwd 
/usr/share/phpmyadmin/libraries
$
$ diff plugin_interface.lib.php.bkp.2019-06-15 plugin_interface.lib.php 
551c551
<         if ($options != null && count($options) > 0) {
---
>         if ($options != null && count((array)$options) > 0) {
$
$ diff sql.lib.php.bkp.2019-06-14 sql.lib.php 
613,614c613,614
<             || (count($analyzed_sql_results['select_expr'] == 1)
<                 && ($analyzed_sql_results['select_expr'][0] == '*')))
---
>             || (count($analyzed_sql_results['select_expr']) == 1)
>                 && ($analyzed_sql_results['select_expr'][0] == '*'))

[darkness44]

don't touch if it works