Debian admin here. Even Debian gets regular kernel upgrades that like a reboot afterwards. Security updates are more important than uptime. Also regular testing for clean recovery after a reboot is a must so a power outrage doesn’t bring any new surprises with it. Also test your backup restores regularly.
Novice homelaber here, is this just a case of apt update & upgrade or is there different commands for security and kernel updates? Also what’s your preferred backup/restore software? Thanks!
Nope it’s just apt update & upgrade. Iirc apt tells you when the kernel was updated and needs a reboot as well.
Only if you installed the package
needrestartfull-upgrade probably a better pick
Is it? Afaik that also removes incompatible packages so if you’ve installed some custom stuff that might not be the best option.
You should be reading the proposed changes before pushing yes. But regardless you can get stuck upgrading if you use only “upgrade” when dependences intentionally incompatibly change by package maintainers
I think you can do
apt upgrade --updatenow.WHAT. Does this do both sudo apt update and sudo apt upgrade?
see also –autoremove
Your note is very interesting about the difference between the commands and how autoremove will automatically remove stuff before or after the upgrade is performed. Should it always be done after, or are there instances when running it before is more beneficial? Is there any need to do both like this:
# sudo apt --update --autoremove upgrade -y && sudo apt autoremove -yI can’t really imagine a benefit to
--autoremoveexcept for keeping old packages a bit longer before removing them.Eg, if you run
apt --update --autoremove upgrade -yonce a day you’ll keep your prior-to-currently-running-version kernel packages a day longer than if you ranautoremoveimmediately after each upgrade.To make things more confusing: the new-ish
apt full-upgradecommand seems to remove most of whatapt autoremovewants to… but not quite everything. 🤷
I think so. I read it a few months back, but I don’t use any apt based systems to check on.
Yup
🤯
‘apt upgrade -U’
Incredible that it’s not written everywhere, I always wanted to use something like this without the " update && upgrade" which looks like is not working oftentimes
Is it really not written? I saw apt upgrade --update and knew the standard shortcut would be -u, but that didn’t work so I tried -U, bingo bongo off I went.
It am quite sure in the manual, but if you just look on the interwebz tutorials every command line just writes the full shebang. So you don’t look up the manual and get flabbergasted when you see this post. btw: if you are able to guess “what the standard shortcut would be”, you are a wizard Harry 🥳
Kernel updates are usually held back and need to be selected manually. E.g. apt-get install linux-image-amd64.
I prefer rsync for private backups and employ bareos in my company for all servers.
I’m not the person you asked the question of. I’m a fellow novice homelaber.
I use Kopia to backup my data folders and Docker container data. Works really well. The project for this weekend is to set offsite backups to be uploaded to iDrive.
When I update I use this:
sudo apt update && \ sudo apt upgrade -y && \ sudo apt full-upgrade -y && \ flatpak update -y 2>/dev/null; \ sudo apt autoremove -y && \ sudo apt autoclean && \ sudo journalctl --vacuum-time=7dYou can get rid of upgrade if you also use full-upgrade
As someone running a UPS on my ubuntu server, “uptime” represents the time since the last kernel release, and not much else.
Yeah, people that brag about uptimes are just bragging about the fragility of their infrastructure. If designed correctly you should be able to patch and reboot infrastructure while application availability stays up.
Even Debian gets regular kernel upgrades that like a reboot afterwards
power outrage
New fear unlocked.
The sun was angry that day, my friend…
What do you use for backup restores ?
The same tools.
I haven’t had a kernel update on Debian that triggered the “you should restart” message in quite some time. I was under the understanding that most newer systems now use splicing at the kernel level to not require periodic reboots.
I haven’t seen it in a while either, but also, if there is a kernel update,
uname -salways returns the old kernel until a reboot.Check for the existence of the for containing packages that recommend a reboot. Debian does not do live patching like Ubuntu does. Not least because updates to firmware are usually not applied until reboot. Also even if that were the case, regular checks for healthy reboots make sense.
This is why we have UPS ;-)
Seriously, one black out and suddenly you see the need for a UPS. Now my desktop is on a USB, my work laptop and monitors are on a UPS, my homelab is on a UPS, even my modem and router are on a UPS. I just wish I could get a backup generator, but that’s not happening anytime soon.
I got tired of my network puking every time the power went out for 5 seconds.
Edit- My NAS really dislikes having the power cut off.
Yep, the black outs have stopped now but for a while it was a daily occurrence. My NAS took a beating and so did my desktop. I spent a ton on ups’s to make sure that stuff was protected and bonus, I wouldn’t loose connection while on phone calls with government officials while at work… they get pissy when you suddenly drop off.
I sometimes have power outage in winter (snow storm, ice, etc) and working from home I need a UPS ; modem cable, router, PC, monitors, are on it, it can stand ~5h
I’ve had good luck with APC. Just be ready to pay a bit more upfront. But so far in the last 6 or 7 years, I’ve only had to replace one battery.
I bought a used APC Back-UPS Pro BR1500G for $100 on market place, it was a good deal, I replaced the 2 battery inside and added 4 outside (it is supported), I’m ready!
$100 is a good deal, though with the batteries you probably paid as much as a new one. But you have extra battery life so win.
My father was an HPUX admin that had a server with an uptime of >12 years
I was introduced to homelab by trying to figure out how my uncles setup. It ran for 4 years after he died, 11 years uptime. The estate probate prevented anyone from touching the equipment for the legal fights, and I get a kick out of thinking of how smug he would have been about it.
Heard of tuptime? I’ve been using it for a while now, I think I like it.
System startups: 151 since 18:00:05 10/11/15 System shutdowns: 137 ok + 13 bad System life: 9yr 223d 1h 27m 47s
Longest uptime: 106d 5h 34m 28s from 14:17:10 26/03/22 Average uptime: 23d 4h 32m 0s System uptime: 99.81% = 9yr 216d 12h 31m 51s
Longest downtime: 4d 23h 30m 48s from 10:36:53 14/09/23 Average downtime: 1h 2m 46s System downtime: 0.19% = 6d 12h 55m 56s
Current uptime: 25d 0h 34m 25s since 20:25:37 15/11/25
Heard of it for the first time (as far as I can remember) a couple days ago, on Lemmy.
TIL, Lemmy’s educational.
Does it work retrospectively?
it doesn’t appear to
Nope it creates a little database, which you could manualy edit I suppose.
So, you never update the kernel?
@NullPointerException @yesman debian never updates it
Or if you have a UPS and backup generator or a house battery (do these need a UPS as well still?) it will tell you how long since you setup the system.
I would suspect you would still want a UPS. I don’t think house “power” setups have the switch over speed even if they’re automatic. Most home generator setups are manual not sure about battery setups.
Pretty sure batteries can be set up for ups. One of the companies I worked for had part of the power for the building as ups. They used orange outlets to mark them. They constantly had to keep telling people not to overload it.
Battery should be automatic, but yeah not certain how quick the switchover is. At least you could go for the smallest capacity UPS there is as long as it can manage the wattage you are going with.
Are we not doing kernel upgrades?
Was about to say, “or if you’re running Arch, the last time you updated the kernel or systemd version, so probably last week or summit.”
Yeah that’s about the only time I have to do reboots at work which are 99% linux. Well the production ones anyway.
Or the other reason is my lab having power issues due to malfunctioning UPSes, faulty NEMA L6-30 plugs, janky 240v circuit breakers or… I’m beginning to think my lab is electrically cursed.
While technically the truth, it can be a hassle to make sure you restart all relevant services after updating a given library.
I just like being able to restart underlying system to take care of any possible straggler without thinking, and the services broadly be provided by multiple systems so the “experience” is starting up through a rolling reboot
Pretty sure everybody is missing the joke. The joke is that Debian packages are so stable and stale that you likely will need a reboot before an update.
Also, it’s a joke…please patch your boxes, k?
I’ve got a patch in my boxers right now.
Oh boxes.
manNot much, time. What’s up with you?
total erection time
I got obsessed with uptime in the early 2000s, but for my desktop Slackware box. It ran a bunch of servers and services and crap but only for me, not heavy loads of public users. Anyway, I reached 6 years of uptime without a UPS and was aiming for 7 when a power outage got me.
Skill issue. Next time you can open up the computers power supply while it’s running, splice in a second power cable, and attach a UPS without powering down or getting electrocuted.
For legal reasons, /s
Not sure what your signature is supposed to do here but now I have 3rd degree burns and a fireball has engulfed my office wall
But more importantly, did your uptime get reset?
“Uptime” — aka the anxiety meter for every sysadmin.
What if I have a really good UPS with like a whole day’s worth of juice?
In a critical environment the UPS only has to last as long as it takes to switch over to a backup generator.
a backup generator.
Hamsters on crack, noted.
Can I ask, what is the advantage of a Debian server over a True Nas one? Asking because I set up True Nas and wondering if I should switch it to Debian
True nas is nas software that moonlights as a server. Debian is a linux distro commonly used as the operating system for servers due to its incredible stability and reliability among other things. So reliable infact that it’s used as the operating system for true nas scale! So unless your using the core version (that runs bsd) then your already using it. As far as rawdogging Debian on your hardware goes, id recommend against it unless you’re looking to seriously up your admin game. No web interfaces, lots of time in the terminal ( command line ) and more configuration files than is anyway reasonable. And we haven’t even started on virtual machines like proxmox ( also Debian based! ) or container critters like docker and kubernetes. (Iirc true nas uses kubernetes under the hood)
alt-text
___alt-text: The “I lied, I don’t have netflix” meme template. The girl with heavy dark rings around her eyes points a gun at the observer, with various images inserted in the background. The images include references to debian, libreboot, rsync, sed&awk, cron. The text reads: “I lied, I don’t have netflix - Take off your shoes, we’re going to learn to setup a NAS with Debian customized and automated to the bone and also automate the deployment process with Kubernetes. Everything will have 3-2-1 backups and controls will be networked to the volume slider in the radio of your car. We will use the motherboard of your calculator because it’s supported by libreboot.”
cool, then we can chill?
We’re chilling right now (: Don’t let the gun mislead you. They sure do have a bad rep. spins gun around finger It’s not actually guns that kill peop- shoots self in foot.
Ahh, another ER romance…
Might as well… we would’ve probably gone to jail instead anyway, because they think they know me better than myself. It would’ve been so romantic though: they’d come banging, shouting some gibberish about unauthorized use of emergency frequency and arson. We would’ve shot two bullets back through the door, shouting back, backup failure IS an emergency, and how you personally don’t take shit from no one.
Small correction: since the newest version there only is Trunas Scale, so the Debian derivative, which they now call Community Edition. The BSD variant has been decommissioned as far as I know.
You seem like the right person to ask this:
What route do I go if I want to up my admin slowly so I eventually feel able to run pure Debian? Currently running Docker on Unraid with two minor VMs but looking to migrate away from Unraid with the intention to only run FOSS (and get a deeper understanding of everything under the hood).
I know that’s little information, all I need is a nudge in the right direction so I can figure things out by consulting documentation and forums.
If you can afford it it’s a good idea to buy a Raspberry Pi since Raspbian is basically just debian. Then replicate your current setup on it and just try to tinker with it without any risks of breaking things or losing data.
If you’re using a lot of Docker I would recommend learning the command line since you’ll be able to use Docker on basically any real OS at that point.
Welcome to home labbing… you poor fool!
Honestly figuring out docker is 50% of the journey with the other 50% mostly being networking. For instance if your looking to start your own Jack Sparrow themed streaming service you’d want to grab a domain name, point it at your ip, open up ports 80 and 443 on your router, install a reverse proxy via docker and set up SSL ( hint: Caddy makes this easy ) and point it at your jellyfin docker container and voila, your very own streaming service you can access from anywhere! Notice the complicated part of all this is mostly the networking and docker setups, not so much the OS that your running. ( Note: don’t open ports without knowing the risks )
Debian is a fine OS but most homelab stuff can be done on anything you can install docker on, even on a windows computer! That’s not to say you shouldn’t learn some Linux server stuff but it isn’t wholly necessary. That being said…
My best advice for getting into Linux servers would be to grab an old PC, laptop or even a raspberry pi and install Debian, raspbian or any other distro on it. Figure out how to log in via ssh and get the thing running headless ( no keyboard or monitor ) and just learning to navigate and do things via the terminal. Some of the basics would be learning to use the package manager to install software, mounting the file system remotely and figuring out how to setup static IPs and such. When your ready go ahead and install docker, follow some tutorials, learn some yaml and your off to the races!
Configurability? I mean Truenas Scale is also based on Debian, but it’s an appliance software, if you want NAS it’s purpose made for that. You need to configure Debian yourself if you want functioning NAS.
I still remember when TN doesn’t have native Tailscale apps/docker yet and everytime there’s a Truenas update I need to reinstall and set up Tailscale from scratch.
If you just need a NAS with basic apps/docker, there is no reason to just use Truenas.
I use both, but run a Technitium DNS and Frigate on bare Debian.
Debian is well known for maintaining established packages in its repos. This means that all of the software is thoroughly tested, and therefore (usually) stable; however, the software in question is generally older, so it also means that sometimes you’ll have to find your own approach if you want to run any newer services.
I like having a consistent update and reboot schedule. Uptime feels overrated over stability and clearing the RAM occasionally.
I definitely have some Docker containers that randomly stop working, and they are more often consistently fixed by a reboot of the machine rather than a reboot of the container or the Docker service.
Not to mention the security implications of not rebooting after certain updates.
Why type
uptimewhenwis sufficient?What the hell!?
?
Because in case not wanting the superfluous lines of output.
