[Users] Issues with kernel upgrade on Debian Wheezy

[Roman Haefeli]

On Mon, 2014-03-24 at 09:40 -0700, Kir Kolyshkin wrote:
> Thank you for detailed position. I have already rolled back to the old 
> versioning scheme,
> please check packages in wheezy-test and let me know if anything is 
> wrong there.

Things look pretty good in wheezy-test. Thanks for the work.

Two minor issues:

* There is still no changelog of the kernel in the package (or
  I cannot find it, usually it goes to something like:
  /usr/share/doc/linux-image-2.6.32-openvz-042stab085.20-amd64/changelog.Debian.gz
   
* The version of the meta package linux-image-openvz-amd64 is higher
  (042+1) in wheezy than in wheezy-test (042stab085.20). When switching
  from wheezy to wheezy-test, one has to remove and re-install the
  package linux-image-openvz-amd64 in order to automatically install the
  newest kernel packagelinux-image-2.6.32-openvz-042stab085.20-amd64

I'm not sure how to resolve the latter problem or whether it should be
addressed at all (switching from wheezy to wheezy-test can considered to
be one time thing). However, once the the current wheezy-test
linux-image-openvz-amd64  goes to wheezy, there is a problem because you
cannot downgrade packages. Either the version needs to be bumped with an
epoch version [1] like 1:042stab085.20 (ugly) or the versioning scheme
needs to be adapted (perhaps also ugly), but how? I can't think of a
truly satisfying solution right now.

[1] https://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-controlfields.html#s-f-Version


Roman


> On 03/24/2014 09:04 AM, Roman Haefeli wrote:
> > Hi all, Ola
> >
> > I followed the recent discussion about OpenVZ kernel package management
> > for Debian. While I don't really have a qualified opinion on the subject
> > matter (personally, I slightly tend towards a new package for each
> > release), let me mention problems with the current situation:
> >
> > * 'uname -r' does not print the actual version (This already has
> >    been mentioned in the other thread)
> >
> > * If there is a problem with a kernel update, I cannot easily revert
> >    to the previous version. At our institution, we experienced cases
> >    where a switch to the previous kernel because of a bug was necessary.
> >
> > * I'm trying to upgrade a machine right now from version 042stab084.26
> >    to newest 042stab085.17. I do:
> >    
> >    $ apt-get update && apt-get dist-upgrade
> >
> >    and I'm prompted with the following dialog:
> >
> >    $  Configuring linux-image-2.6.32-openvz-amd64
> >    $  -------------------------------------------
> >    $
> >    $  You are attempting to install a kernel image (version 2.6.32-openvz-amd64) However, the directory /lib/modules/2.6.32-openvz-amd64/kernel still exists.  If this directory belongs to a previous linux-image-2.6.32-openvz-amd64
> >    $  package, and if you have deselected some modules, or installed standalone modules packages, this could be bad.
> >    $
> >    $  If /lib/modules/2.6.32-openvz-amd64/kernel belongs to an old install of linux-image-2.6.32-openvz-amd64, then this is your last chance to abort the installation of this kernel image (nothing has been changed yet).
> >    $
> >    $  If you know what you are doing, and if you feel that this image should be installed despite this anomaly, Please answer n to the question.
> >    $
> >    $  Otherwise, I suggest you move /lib/modules/2.6.32-openvz-amd64/kernel out of the way, perhaps to /lib/modules/2.6.32-openvz-amd64.kernel.old or something, and then try re-installing this image.
> >    $
> >    $  Stop install since the kernel-image is already installed?
> >
> >    If Debian does in-place kernel upgrades (a.k.a keeping the package
> >    name while upgrading the kernel), they managed to never bother the
> >    user with a question like this. I certainly know too little about
> >    kernel package management to be of any help,  but to me that dialog
> >    indicates that something is still odd.
> >   
> >
> > Those issues might be solved while sticking to the in-place upgrade
> > scheme and are not necessarily an argument against it. I just wanted to
> > mention them.
> >
> > Ranting aside, I am more than happy to see someone puts the effort into
> > making all the great OpenVZ software easily accessible for Debian
> > systems. For Debian, the situation has never been better before. Thanks
> > a lot for that work.
> >
> > Roman
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Users mailing list
> > Users at openvz.org
> > https://lists.openvz.org/mailman/listinfo/users
>