• moving some packages back to bookworm stable

    From Michael Grant@21:1/5 to All on Mon May 27 16:10:02 2024
    I needed to install a version of sendmail from testing a while back to
    test it. On friday, I ran 'apt upgrade' which looked like it was
    going to uninstall and then reinstall the sendmail packages. I let it
    run, when it was done, only some of the sendmail packages had
    re-installed. Basically, I shot myself in the foot with the
    dependencies. In the end, this was not a good idea.

    I really do not want to reinstall the entire box, there's a lot of
    config that has gone into this over the years. What I'd like to do is
    just get back to stable bookworm packages.

    Before the update, these are the packages that were installed from
    testing:

    $ apt-show-versions | grep testing
    libmilter1.0.1:amd64/testing 8.18.1-3 uptodate
    libsasl2-2:amd64/testing 2.1.28+dfsg1-4+b1 upgradeable to 2.1.28+dfsg1-6 libsasl2-modules:amd64/testing 2.1.28+dfsg1-4+b1 upgradeable to 2.1.28+dfsg1-6 libsasl2-modules-db:amd64/testing 2.1.28+dfsg1-4+b1 upgradeable to 2.1.28+dfsg1-6
    sasl2-bin:amd64/testing 2.1.28+dfsg1-4+b1 upgradeable to 2.1.28+dfsg1-6 sendmail:all/testing 8.18.1-3 uptodate
    sendmail-base:all/testing 8.18.1-1 upgradeable to 8.18.1-3 sendmail-bin:amd64/testing 8.18.1-1 upgradeable to 8.18.1-3 sendmail-cf:all/testing 8.18.1-1 upgradeable to 8.18.1-3 sensible-mda:amd64/testing 8.18.1-3 uptodate

    After a day of frantically trying to get things working again, I found
    I had some package that depended on some t64 version of some library.
    In the end, I think it was sasl2-bin. I ended up installing sasl2-bin
    from testing, then sendmail started working again. This is what I
    ended up with installed from testing:

    $ apt-show-versions | grep testing
    db-util:all/testing 5.3.3 uptodate
    db5.3-util:amd64/testing 5.3.28+dfsg2-7 uptodate
    libc-bin:amd64/testing 2.38-11 uptodate
    libc-dev-bin:amd64/testing 2.38-11 uptodate
    libc-devtools:amd64/testing 2.38-11 uptodate
    libc-l10n:all/testing 2.38-11 uptodate
    libc6:amd64/testing 2.38-11 uptodate
    libc6-dev:amd64/testing 2.38-11 uptodate
    libdb5.3t64:amd64/testing 5.3.28+dfsg2-7 uptodate
    libmilter1.0.1:amd64/testing 8.18.1-3 uptodate
    libsasl2-2:amd64/testing 2.1.28+dfsg1-6 uptodate
    libsasl2-modules:amd64/testing 2.1.28+dfsg1-6 uptodate libsasl2-modules-db:amd64/testing 2.1.28+dfsg1-6 uptodate libssl3t64:amd64/testing 3.2.1-3 uptodate
    libzstd1:amd64/testing 1.5.5+dfsg2-2 uptodate
    locales:all/testing 2.38-11 uptodate
    openssh-client:amd64/testing 1:9.7p1-5 uptodate
    openssh-server:amd64/testing 1:9.7p1-5 uptodate openssh-sftp-server:amd64/testing 1:9.7p1-5 uptodate
    openssl:amd64/testing 3.2.1-3 uptodate
    sasl2-bin:amd64/testing 2.1.28+dfsg1-6 uptodate
    sendmail:all/testing 8.18.1-3 uptodate
    sendmail-base:all/testing 8.18.1-3 uptodate
    sendmail-bin:amd64/testing 8.18.1-3 uptodate
    sendmail-cf:all/testing 8.18.1-3 uptodate
    sensible-mda:amd64/testing 8.18.1-3 uptodate
    zstd:amd64/testing 1.5.5+dfsg2-2 uptodate

    I did not manually install most of that. Only sasl2-bin and sendmail
    from testing.

    What's the best way to get back to running just the bookworm stable
    packages? I tried what I thought was the obvious way to fix this by
    running:

    # apt install -t=bookworm db-util db5.3-util libc-bin libc-dev-bin libc-devtools libc-l10n libc6 libc6-dev libdb5.3t64 libmilter1.0.1 libsasl2-2 libsasl2-modules libsasl2-modules-db libssl3t64 libzstd1 locales openssh-client openssh-server openssh-sftp-
    server openssl sasl2-bin sendmail sendmail-base sendmail-bin sendmail-cf sensible-mda zstd
    Reading package lists... Done
    Building dependency tree... Done
    Reading state information... Done
    db-util is already the newest version (5.3.3).
    db5.3-util is already the newest version (5.3.28+dfsg2-7).
    libc-bin is already the newest version (2.38-11).
    libc-dev-bin is already the newest version (2.38-11).
    libc-devtools is already the newest version (2.38-11).
    libc-l10n is already the newest version (2.38-11).
    libc6 is already the newest version (2.38-11).
    libc6-dev is already the newest version (2.38-11).
    libdb5.3t64 is already the newest version (5.3.28+dfsg2-7).
    libmilter1.0.1 is already the newest version (8.18.1-3).
    libsasl2-2 is already the newest version (2.1.28+dfsg1-6).
    libsasl2-modules is already the newest version (2.1.28+dfsg1-6). libsasl2-modules-db is already the newest version (2.1.28+dfsg1-6).
    libssl3t64 is already the newest version (3.2.1-3).
    libzstd1 is already the newest version (1.5.5+dfsg2-2).
    locales is already the newest version (2.38-11).
    openssh-client is already the newest version (1:9.7p1-5).
    openssh-server is already the newest version (1:9.7p1-5).
    openssh-sftp-server is already the newest version (1:9.7p1-5).
    openssl is already the newest version (3.2.1-3).
    sasl2-bin is already the newest version (2.1.28+dfsg1-6).
    sendmail is already the newest version (8.18.1-3).
    sendmail-base is already the newest version (8.18.1-3).
    sendmail-bin is already the newest version (8.18.1-3).
    sendmail-cf is already the newest version (8.18.1-3).
    sensible-mda is already the newest version (8.18.1-3).
    zstd is already the newest version (1.5.5+dfsg2-2).
    0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.


    Yes, I am guilty of creating this mess, let's not dwell on that.

    Michael Grant

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  • From Greg Wooledge@21:1/5 to Michael Grant on Mon May 27 16:30:01 2024
    On Mon, May 27, 2024 at 09:56:54AM -0400, Michael Grant wrote:
    I needed to install a version of sendmail from testing a while back to
    test it.

    Your subject header says "bookworm stable". You don't install binary
    packages from testing on a stable system. You use backports instead.

    https://backports.debian.org/Instructions/

    There is already a bookworm backported version of sendmail available:

    https://packages.debian.org/search?keywords=sendmail&searchon=names&section=all&suite=bookworm-backports

    If that one isn't new enough, then you may need to build your own backport package. This is usually either trivially easy ("type these commands")
    or utterly impossible, depending on which dependencies have changed
    since bookworm. There's no in-between.

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  • From Greg Wooledge@21:1/5 to Michael Grant on Mon May 27 16:40:01 2024
    On Mon, May 27, 2024 at 10:28:37AM -0400, Michael Grant wrote:
    On Mon, May 27, 2024 at 10:19:48AM -0400, Greg Wooledge wrote:
    On Mon, May 27, 2024 at 09:56:54AM -0400, Michael Grant wrote:
    I needed to install a version of sendmail from testing a while back to test it.

    Your subject header says "bookworm stable". You don't install binary packages from testing on a stable system. You use backports instead.

    ugh no, wait, I may be using the wrong terminology. I'm not wanting
    to install special packages and definitely don't need to build my own.

    What I want to do is get the system back to just using the packages
    from stable rather than testing. Only those few packages before
    things get worse in the next update. There's not many.

    Downgrading essential libraries (libc6 and friends) that were brought
    in when you tainted your stable system with testing packages is going
    to be risky.

    Definitely make a backup before you do ANYTHING.

    Once that's done, you can try purging the non-essential testing packages,
    and then downgrading the essential ones. If at any point the system
    becomes utterly broken, reinstall stable, and then restore your backup.

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  • From David Wright@21:1/5 to Michael Grant on Mon May 27 17:00:01 2024
    On Mon 27 May 2024 at 09:56:54 (-0400), Michael Grant wrote:
    What's the best way to get back to running just the bookworm stable
    packages? I tried what I thought was the obvious way to fix this by
    running:

    # apt install -t=bookworm db-util db5.3-util libc-bin libc-dev-bin libc-devtools libc-l10n libc6 libc6-dev libdb5.3t64 libmilter1.0.1 libsasl2-2 libsasl2-modules libsasl2-modules-db libssl3t64 libzstd1 locales openssh-client openssh-server openssh-sftp-
    server openssl sasl2-bin sendmail sendmail-base sendmail-bin sendmail-cf sensible-mda zstd

    As Greg wrote: backups come first.

    But in the above, you need reinstall, either as a command, or
    as an option --reinstall.

    Cheers,
    David.

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  • From Stefan Monnier@21:1/5 to All on Mon May 27 17:10:02 2024
    I needed to install a version of sendmail from testing a while back to
    test it.

    Downgrading Debian packages is not well supported, by and large.
    So installing `testing` packages into a `stable` install is manageable
    (tho it itself can bring trouble) but going back to `stable` afterwards
    tends to be a lot more complicated.

    Transitions like the t64 transition going on right now in `testing` make
    it yet more troublesome.

    I recommend the use of snapshots when you want to try such a thing with
    the intention of "going back" later.

    # apt install -t=bookworm db-util db5.3-util libc-bin libc-dev-bin

    I can never remember exactly what `-t` really does, but I suspect you'll
    need things like

    apt install libc-bin/bookworm

    to state more explicitly what you want.
    Maybe you can do something like

    apt install $(apt-show-versions | sed -n 's|/testing.*|/stable|p')


    - Stefan

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  • From Hans@21:1/5 to All on Mon May 27 17:40:01 2024
    Doing "apt-get upgrade" will only upgrade all installed packages, but no new ones (even, if they are needed).

    Better is to do an "apt-get full-upgrade", which will install the whole system from stable to testing. However, this might also uninstall some wanted packages, thus often it is calles the "intelligent" upgrade. Intelligent does not mean, the upgrade is intelligent, but the one doing this upgrade (mostly the person, who is root) should be intelligent.

    Downgrading is not an easy way, but managable. But it is a lot of intelligent work.

    How can you do this? This is, how I am figured out (best way for me!)

    First, remove the entry from stable off your sources.list.

    Then start aptitude and update the list.

    Next manually search all packages you want to downgrade to the needed
    versions. The last apt-get or aptitude log should help.


    Mark all installed versions to "remove" (magenta coluur) and needed versions
    to "install" (green colour).

    Now, dive manually into all dependencies (these are marked with the red coulour) and do the same as above (mark the installed version first "remove" then the correct as "install").

    Important: Check that ALL dependencies are correct and no libs or anything
    else is set with red colour.

    This process must be done very, very correct!

    After this press "g" (which is for "install now") and if everything was set correct, all packages are now downgraded.

    Note: If you have missed something, you have to restart again!

    From my experiences this doing so is still faster, than to setup a new system.

    Hope this helps.

    Good luck!

    Best

    Hans

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  • From Michael Grant@21:1/5 to All on Mon May 27 18:30:02 2024
    Hans, thanks for that but I am a bit confused following your
    instructions. Did you mean to I should remove the lines for 'stable'
    from sources.list? Or remove the lines for 'testing'? I am trying to
    get the packages to go back to stable.

    I am more familiar with apt than aptitude.

    I managed to do part of what Greg recommended. I removed sendmail and sasl2-bin and reinstalled them from stable. That seemed to work fine,
    I have fewer testing pkgs installed now:

    $ apt-show-versions | g testing
    db-util:all/testing 5.3.3 uptodate
    db5.3-util:amd64/testing 5.3.28+dfsg2-7 uptodate
    libc-bin:amd64/testing 2.38-11 uptodate
    libc-dev-bin:amd64/testing 2.38-11 uptodate
    libc-devtools:amd64/testing 2.38-11 uptodate
    libc-l10n:all/testing 2.38-11 uptodate
    libc6:amd64/testing 2.38-11 uptodate
    libc6-dev:amd64/testing 2.38-11 uptodate
    libdb5.3t64:amd64/testing 5.3.28+dfsg2-7 uptodate
    libmilter1.0.1:amd64/testing 8.18.1-3 uptodate
    libsasl2-2:amd64/testing 2.1.28+dfsg1-6 uptodate
    libsasl2-modules:amd64/testing 2.1.28+dfsg1-6 uptodate libsasl2-modules-db:amd64/testing 2.1.28+dfsg1-6 uptodate libssl3t64:amd64/testing 3.2.1-3 uptodate
    libzstd1:amd64/testing 1.5.5+dfsg2-2 uptodate
    locales:all/testing 2.38-11 uptodate
    openssh-client:amd64/testing 1:9.7p1-5 uptodate
    openssh-server:amd64/testing 1:9.7p1-5 uptodate openssh-sftp-server:amd64/testing 1:9.7p1-5 uptodate
    openssl:amd64/testing 3.2.1-3 uptodate
    zstd:amd64/testing 1.5.5+dfsg2-2 uptodate

    so I thought I'd try the same process with db5.3, but removing db5.3
    wants to remove a slew of packages:

    # apt reinstall -s libdb5.3/bookworm
    ...
    Selected version '5.3.28+dfsg2-1' (Debian:12.5/stable [amd64]) for 'libdb5.3' The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:
    acl apache2-data apache2-utils augeas-lenses avahi-daemon clamav-base colord-data git-man gnupg-l10n gnupg-utils gpg-wks-server guile-3.0-libs ipp-usb libapr1 libaprutil1
    libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3 libaugeas0 libavahi-core7 libcolorhug2 libdaemon0 libexif12 libgphoto2-l10n libgphoto2-port12 libgudev-1.0-0 libgusb2 libhashkit2 libieee1284-3 libldap-common
    liblua5.3-0 libnspr4 libnss-mdns libnss3 libopendbx1 libopendbx1-sqlite3 libopendkim11 libpoppler-glib8 libpoppler126 libpython2-stdlib libpython3.11 librbl1 librtmp1 libsane-common
    libsnmp-base libsnmp40 libssh2-1 libvbr2 mailutils-common python2 python2-minimal python3-augeas sane-airscan update-inetd usb.ids
    Use 'apt autoremove' to remove them

    Is there some way to get apt to reinstall a package such that it does
    not think it has to uninstall things which depend on it because it's
    being immediatly reinstalled?

    And for those of you telling me to have a backup, I do. I have booted
    a snapshot from about a week ago. However, to make that the live one
    and dump this one, it's not so easy but possible. That snapshot has
    only sendmail from testing. Hard to know what is more work, going down
    this route or making the other instance live. I'm starting to think
    about abandoning this and reconfiguring the backup instance.

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  • From Dan Ritter@21:1/5 to Stefan Monnier on Mon May 27 19:10:01 2024
    Stefan Monnier wrote:
    # apt install -t=bookworm db-util db5.3-util libc-bin libc-dev-bin

    I can never remember exactly what `-t` really does, but I suspect you'll
    need things like

    apt install libc-bin/bookworm

    To install a single backported (or other release) package,
    apt-get install packagename/releasename

    and to install a backported package plus dependencies which
    are also from that specific release, use
    apt-get -t releasename packagename

    -dsr-

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  • From Stefan Monnier@21:1/5 to All on Mon May 27 20:10:01 2024
    # apt install -t=bookworm db-util db5.3-util libc-bin libc-dev-bin

    I can never remember exactly what `-t` really does, but I suspect you'll
    need things like

    apt install libc-bin/bookworm

    To install a single backported (or other release) package,
    apt-get install packagename/releasename

    and to install a backported package plus dependencies which
    are also from that specific release, use
    apt-get -t releasename packagename

    But that's not the whole story of what `-t` does since the above does
    not explain why his attempt to use `-t` to downgrade some packages
    resulted in `apt` saying "<blabla> is already the newest version".


    Stefan

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  • From David Wright@21:1/5 to Michael Grant on Mon May 27 20:10:01 2024
    On Mon 27 May 2024 at 12:23:41 (-0400), Michael Grant wrote:
    [ … ]
    so I thought I'd try the same process with db5.3, but removing db5.3
    wants to remove a slew of packages:

    # apt reinstall -s libdb5.3/bookworm
    ...
    Selected version '5.3.28+dfsg2-1' (Debian:12.5/stable [amd64]) for 'libdb5.3' The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:
    acl apache2-data apache2-utils augeas-lenses avahi-daemon clamav-base colord-data git-man gnupg-l10n gnupg-utils gpg-wks-server guile-3.0-libs ipp-usb libapr1 libaprutil1
    libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3 libaugeas0 libavahi-core7 libcolorhug2 libdaemon0 libexif12 libgphoto2-l10n libgphoto2-port12 libgudev-1.0-0 libgusb2 libhashkit2 libieee1284-3 libldap-common
    liblua5.3-0 libnspr4 libnss-mdns libnss3 libopendbx1 libopendbx1-sqlite3 libopendkim11 libpoppler-glib8 libpoppler126 libpython2-stdlib libpython3.11 librbl1 librtmp1 libsane-common
    libsnmp-base libsnmp40 libssh2-1 libvbr2 mailutils-common python2 python2-minimal python3-augeas sane-airscan update-inetd usb.ids
    Use 'apt autoremove' to remove them

    So what did it say after that?

    Is there some way to get apt to reinstall a package such that it does
    not think it has to uninstall things which depend on it because it's
    being immediatly reinstalled?

    That is the idea behind reinstall, though downgrading is always
    a test of its ability to succeed.

    Cheers,
    David.

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  • From David Wright@21:1/5 to Stefan Monnier on Mon May 27 20:50:01 2024
    On Mon 27 May 2024 at 14:02:47 (-0400), Stefan Monnier wrote:
    # apt install -t=bookworm db-util db5.3-util libc-bin libc-dev-bin

    I can never remember exactly what `-t` really does, but I suspect you'll >> need things like

    apt install libc-bin/bookworm

    To install a single backported (or other release) package,
    apt-get install packagename/releasename

    and to install a backported package plus dependencies which
    are also from that specific release, use
    apt-get -t releasename packagename

    But that's not the whole story of what `-t` does since the above does
    not explain why his attempt to use `-t` to downgrade some packages
    resulted in `apt` saying "<blabla> is already the newest version".

    Neither syntax will specify a newer version for plain "install"
    to install or upgrade.

    Cheers,
    David.

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  • From Detlef Vollmann@21:1/5 to Stefan Monnier on Mon May 27 22:00:01 2024
    On 5/27/24 20:02, Stefan Monnier wrote:
    # apt install -t=bookworm db-util db5.3-util libc-bin libc-dev-bin

    I can never remember exactly what `-t` really does, but I suspect you'll >>> need things like

    apt install libc-bin/bookworm

    To install a single backported (or other release) package,
    apt-get install packagename/releasename

    and to install a backported package plus dependencies which
    are also from that specific release, use
    apt-get -t releasename packagename

    But that's not the whole story of what `-t` does since the above does
    not explain why his attempt to use `-t` to downgrade some packages
    resulted in `apt` saying "<blabla> is already the newest version".

    Sometimes '-t' works for me, and does what I expect, and sometimes
    it doesn't. So I generelly use now the explicit version:

    apt install libc-bin=2.36-9+deb12u7

    Detlef

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  • From Michael =?utf-8?B?S2rDtnJsaW5n?=@21:1/5 to All on Mon May 27 22:30:01 2024
    On 27 May 2024 12:23 -0400, from [email protected] (Michael Grant):
    so I thought I'd try the same process with db5.3, but removing db5.3
    wants to remove a slew of packages:

    # apt reinstall -s libdb5.3/bookworm
    ...
    Selected version '5.3.28+dfsg2-1' (Debian:12.5/stable [amd64]) for 'libdb5.3' The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:
    acl apache2-data apache2-utils augeas-lenses avahi-daemon clamav-base colord-data git-man gnupg-l10n gnupg-utils gpg-wks-server guile-3.0-libs ipp-usb libapr1 libaprutil1
    libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3 libaugeas0 libavahi-core7 libcolorhug2 libdaemon0 libexif12 libgphoto2-l10n libgphoto2-port12 libgudev-1.0-0 libgusb2 libhashkit2 libieee1284-3 libldap-common
    liblua5.3-0 libnspr4 libnss-mdns libnss3 libopendbx1 libopendbx1-sqlite3 libopendkim11 libpoppler-glib8 libpoppler126 libpython2-stdlib libpython3.11 librbl1 librtmp1 libsane-common
    libsnmp-base libsnmp40 libssh2-1 libvbr2 mailutils-common python2 python2-minimal python3-augeas sane-airscan update-inetd usb.ids
    Use 'apt autoremove' to remove them

    "removing db5.3 wants to remove a slew of packages"

    No, that's very likely not what apt is telling you. Rather, it's
    telling you that the _current_ state of the system is that those
    packages were automatically installed (very likely pulled in as
    dependencies for other packages) and with the packages _currently_
    installed, they are no longer needed as dependencies of anything.
    Therefore, apt concludes that they would be safe to remove. I'd say
    that that's a dubious conclusion, though; certainly blindly
    uninstalling something like libnss3 or libpython* seems unlikely to be
    a good idea.

    You can confirm this with a bare for example: apt-get --simulate autoremove

    I'd also suggest using -V/--verbose-versions/APT::Get::Show-Versions
    while you're trying to sort this out, as which specific versions of
    each package is involved may very well be very relevant information.

    --
    Michael Kjörling 🔗 https://michael.kjorling.se “Remember when, on the Internet, nobody cared that you were a dog?”

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  • From David Wright@21:1/5 to Detlef Vollmann on Tue May 28 01:30:01 2024
    On Mon 27 May 2024 at 21:46:24 (+0200), Detlef Vollmann wrote:
    On 5/27/24 20:02, Stefan Monnier wrote:
    # apt install -t=bookworm db-util db5.3-util libc-bin libc-dev-bin

    I can never remember exactly what `-t` really does, but I suspect you'll
    need things like

    apt install libc-bin/bookworm

    To install a single backported (or other release) package,
    apt-get install packagename/releasename

    and to install a backported package plus dependencies which
    are also from that specific release, use
    apt-get -t releasename packagename

    But that's not the whole story of what `-t` does since the above does
    not explain why his attempt to use `-t` to downgrade some packages
    resulted in `apt` saying "<blabla> is already the newest version".

    Sometimes '-t' works for me, and does what I expect, and sometimes
    it doesn't.

    And, of course, what would interest the list is what it says
    when it doesn't work.

    So I generelly use now the explicit version:

    apt install libc-bin=2.36-9+deb12u7

    Cheers,
    David.

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  • From [email protected]@21:1/5 to Stefan Monnier on Tue May 28 06:30:01 2024
    On Mon, May 27, 2024 at 02:02:47PM -0400, Stefan Monnier wrote:
    # apt install -t=bookworm db-util db5.3-util libc-bin libc-dev-bin

    I can never remember exactly what `-t` really does, but I suspect you'll >> need things like

    apt install libc-bin/bookworm

    To install a single backported (or other release) package,
    apt-get install packagename/releasename

    and to install a backported package plus dependencies which
    are also from that specific release, use
    apt-get -t releasename packagename

    But that's not the whole story of what `-t` does since the above does
    not explain why his attempt to use `-t` to downgrade some packages
    resulted in `apt` saying "<blabla> is already the newest version".

    ISTR that "apt-get install <package>=<version>" will unconditionally
    install <version> of <package>, if necessary pulling in dependencies.

    But I've never tried it :-)

    Cheers
    --
    t

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  • From Greg Wooledge@21:1/5 to Michael Grant on Tue May 28 13:10:01 2024
    On Tue, May 28, 2024 at 06:10:11AM -0400, Michael Grant wrote:
    The following packages will be REMOVED:
    [...] libdb5.3t64 [...]

    You've *clearly* still got testing packages installed.

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  • From Michael Grant@21:1/5 to David Wright on Tue May 28 12:20:01 2024
    On Mon, May 27, 2024 at 12:59:34PM -0500, David Wright wrote:
    So what did it say after that?

    Sorry, here's the entire output of one of the tries:

    [bottom /etc/mail #1168] apt install libdb5.3/bookworm db5.3-util/bookworm db-util/bookworm
    Reading package lists... Done
    Building dependency tree... Done
    Reading state information... Done
    Selected version '5.3.28+dfsg2-1' (Debian:12.5/stable [amd64]) for 'libdb5.3' Selected version '5.3.28+dfsg2-1' (Debian:12.5/stable [amd64]) for 'db5.3-util' Selected version '5.3.2' (Debian:12.5/stable [all]) for 'db-util'
    The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:
    acl apache2-data apache2-utils augeas-lenses avahi-daemon clamav-base colord-data git-man gnupg-l10n gnupg-utils gpg-wks-server guile-3.0-libs ipp-usb libapr1 libaprutil1
    libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3 libaugeas0 libavahi-core7 libcolorhug2 libdaemon0 libexif12 libgphoto2-l10n libgphoto2-port12 libgudev-1.0-0 libgusb2 libhashkit2 libieee1284-3 libldap-common
    liblua5.3-0 libnspr4 libnss-mdns libnss3 libopendbx1 libopendbx1-sqlite3 libopendkim11 libpoppler-glib8 libpoppler126 libpython2-stdlib libpython3.11 librbl1 librtmp1 libsane-common
    libsnmp-base libsnmp40 libssh2-1 libvbr2 mailutils-common python2 python2-minimal python3-augeas sane-airscan update-inetd usb.ids
    Use 'apt autoremove' to remove them.
    The following additional packages will be installed:
    php8.2-fpm
    Suggested packages:
    php-pear
    The following packages will be REMOVED:
    apache2 apache2-bin clamav clamav-daemon clamav-freshclam clamav-milter clamav-unofficial-sigs clamdscan colord curl dirmngr git gnupg gnupg2 gpg-wks-client libapache2-mod-php8.2
    libapache2-mod-ruid2 libaprutil1-ldap libclamav11 libcurl3-gnutls libcurl4 libdb5.3t64 libgphoto2-6 libldap-2.5-0 libmailutils9 libmemcached11 libpq5 libsane1 libsasl2-2
    libsasl2-modules-db mailutils mongo-tools opendkim opendkim-tools python-apt python3-certbot-apache python3-debianbts python3-pycurl python3-pysimplesoap python3-reportbug reportbug
    sane-utils sasl2-bin sendmail sendmail-bin sensible-mda
    The following NEW packages will be installed:
    libdb5.3 php8.2-fpm
    The following packages will be DOWNGRADED:
    db-util db5.3-util
    0 upgraded, 2 newly installed, 2 downgraded, 46 to remove and 0 not upgraded. Need to get 1,743 kB/2,507 kB of archives.
    After this operation, 234 MB disk space will be freed.
    Do you want to continue? [Y/n] n
    Abort.

    Is there some way to get apt to reinstall a package such that it does
    not think it has to uninstall things which depend on it because it's
    being immediatly reinstalled?

    That is the idea behind reinstall, though downgrading is always
    a test of its ability to succeed.

    What it says it's going to do is actually remove those 46 packages and
    not reinstall them. I believe it! Clearly apt is unwinding the
    dependencies. It seems like it's not taking into account the
    downgraded libdb5.3 is a valid dependency for all the things it's
    about to uninstall so it doesn't need to uninstall those things. I
    thought it should do that, but for some reason, it's not doing that
    for me.


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  • From Greg Wooledge@21:1/5 to Michael Grant on Tue May 28 14:10:01 2024
    On Tue, May 28, 2024 at 07:09:16AM -0400, Michael Grant wrote:
    On Tue, May 28, 2024 at 06:59:50AM -0400, Greg Wooledge wrote:
    On Tue, May 28, 2024 at 06:10:11AM -0400, Michael Grant wrote:
    The following packages will be REMOVED:
    [...] libdb5.3t64 [...]

    You've *clearly* still got testing packages installed.

    YES. As I originally said, I created this mess by installing sendmail
    from testing. And then, a month or so later, I did an
    apt-get upgrade (to do updates, not a full upgrade) which pulled in
    some more things from testing. I'm trying to get back to all being
    from stable.

    So, which part are you confused about? Did you think there was some
    easy way to FIX a frankendebian? Are you confused because you keep
    thinking "there must be some single apt command that will do all the
    work for me"?

    There's not. You get to do all the work by hand.

    You will most likely need to remove the testing versions of these packages (apache2, git and so on) and then install the bookworm versions afterward.

    The things to watch out for are config files (hence your backup), and
    any crazy dependency situations. In the ideal case, you'll simply be
    able to remove all the packages that aren't libs, then downgrade the
    libs, then reinstall the packages. And make sure you have sensible
    config files. If you get stuck, there's always the big hammer
    (dpkg --force-depends and so on).

    If/when it breaks, you get to reinstall from scratch.

    This is why we tell people DO NOT MIX BINARY PACKAGES FROM MULTIPLE
    RELEASES.

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  • From Dan Ritter@21:1/5 to [email protected] on Tue May 28 14:40:01 2024
    [email protected] wrote:
    On Mon, May 27, 2024 at 02:02:47PM -0400, Stefan Monnier wrote:

    ISTR that "apt-get install <package>=<version>" will unconditionally
    install <version> of <package>, if necessary pulling in dependencies.

    But I've never tried it :-)

    That pulls in dependencies but does not install packages that
    would otherwise be forbidden by the priority system.

    E.g.: if you have foobar 1.5 in stable and foobar 2.1 in
    backports, and they each depend on libfoobar of the same version
    number, then

    apt-get install foobar=2.1

    will fail saying that it requires libfoobar 2.1 but version 1.5
    is to be installed.

    You can then solve that by saying

    apt-get install foobar=2.1 libfoobar=2.1

    but many interesting packages will have a web of dependencies,
    and sometimes following them will get you to a place it is hard
    to escape.

    The backports repository is generally safe (or safe-ish) because
    the packages in it are meant to work in a mostly-stable system.

    Other repos are less accomodating.

    -dsr-

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  • From [email protected]@21:1/5 to Michael Grant on Tue May 28 15:00:01 2024
    On Tue, 28 May 2024, Michael Grant wrote:

    On Mon, May 27, 2024 at 12:59:34PM -0500, David Wright wrote:
    So what did it say after that?

    Sorry, here's the entire output of one of the tries:

    [bottom /etc/mail #1168] apt install libdb5.3/bookworm db5.3-util/bookworm db-util/bookworm
    Reading package lists... Done
    Building dependency tree... Done
    Reading state information... Done
    Selected version '5.3.28+dfsg2-1' (Debian:12.5/stable [amd64]) for 'libdb5.3' Selected version '5.3.28+dfsg2-1' (Debian:12.5/stable [amd64]) for 'db5.3-util'
    Selected version '5.3.2' (Debian:12.5/stable [all]) for 'db-util'
    The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:
    acl apache2-data apache2-utils augeas-lenses avahi-daemon clamav-base colord-data git-man gnupg-l10n gnupg-utils gpg-wks-server guile-3.0-libs ipp-usb libapr1 libaprutil1
    libaprutil1-dbd-sqlite3 libaugeas0 libavahi-core7 libcolorhug2 libdaemon0 libexif12 libgphoto2-l10n libgphoto2-port12 libgudev-1.0-0 libgusb2 libhashkit2 libieee1284-3 libldap-common
    liblua5.3-0 libnspr4 libnss-mdns libnss3 libopendbx1 libopendbx1-sqlite3 libopendkim11 libpoppler-glib8 libpoppler126 libpython2-stdlib libpython3.11 librbl1 librtmp1 libsane-common
    libsnmp-base libsnmp40 libssh2-1 libvbr2 mailutils-common python2 python2-minimal python3-augeas sane-airscan update-inetd usb.ids
    Use 'apt autoremove' to remove them.
    The following additional packages will be installed:
    php8.2-fpm
    Suggested packages:
    php-pear
    The following packages will be REMOVED:
    apache2 apache2-bin clamav clamav-daemon clamav-freshclam clamav-milter clamav-unofficial-sigs clamdscan colord curl dirmngr git gnupg gnupg2 gpg-wks-client libapache2-mod-php8.2
    libapache2-mod-ruid2 libaprutil1-ldap libclamav11 libcurl3-gnutls libcurl4 libdb5.3t64 libgphoto2-6 libldap-2.5-0 libmailutils9 libmemcached11 libpq5 libsane1 libsasl2-2
    libsasl2-modules-db mailutils mongo-tools opendkim opendkim-tools python-apt python3-certbot-apache python3-debianbts python3-pycurl python3-pysimplesoap python3-reportbug reportbug
    sane-utils sasl2-bin sendmail sendmail-bin sensible-mda
    The following NEW packages will be installed:
    libdb5.3 php8.2-fpm
    The following packages will be DOWNGRADED:
    db-util db5.3-util
    0 upgraded, 2 newly installed, 2 downgraded, 46 to remove and 0 not upgraded. Need to get 1,743 kB/2,507 kB of archives.
    After this operation, 234 MB disk space will be freed.
    Do you want to continue? [Y/n] n
    Abort.

    Is there some way to get apt to reinstall a package such that it does
    not think it has to uninstall things which depend on it because it's
    being immediatly reinstalled?

    That is the idea behind reinstall, though downgrading is always
    a test of its ability to succeed.

    What it says it's going to do is actually remove those 46 packages and
    not reinstall them. I believe it! Clearly apt is unwinding the dependencies. It seems like it's not taking into account the
    downgraded libdb5.3 is a valid dependency for all the things it's
    about to uninstall so it doesn't need to uninstall those things. I
    thought it should do that, but for some reason, it's not doing that
    for me.



    i ran into exactly this same situation
    apt and apt-get wanted to remove a passel of packages
    i tried aptitude and it removed only the package i wanted
    the system still works fine
    just my experience

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  • From Michael Grant@21:1/5 to All on Tue May 28 15:20:02 2024
    So, which part are you confused about? Did you think there was some
    easy way to FIX a frankendebian? Are you confused because you keep
    thinking "there must be some single apt command that will do all the
    work for me"?

    There's not. You get to do all the work by hand.

    I am trying to do it by hand. There's not many packages to deal
    with at this point, doing this by hand looks like 10 or so packages.

    You will most likely need to remove the testing versions of these packages (apache2, git and so on) and then install the bookworm versions afterward.

    Those dependent packages (most if not all) are not from testing.
    apache2, perl, they are all installed from bookworm or
    bookworm-security.

    That db5.3 from testing is uninstalled and reinstalling from stable is
    causing these other packages from stable to be uninstalled. I find
    that confusing.

    But what about libc6? That one really worries me.

    # apt remove -s libc6
    Reading package lists... Done
    Building dependency tree... Done
    Reading state information... Done
    Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have
    requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable
    distribution that some required packages have not yet been created
    or been moved out of Incoming.
    The following information may help to resolve the situation:

    The following packages have unmet dependencies:
    ....a few pages of dependicies...

    The things to watch out for are config files (hence your backup), and
    any crazy dependency situations. In the ideal case, you'll simply be
    able to remove all the packages that aren't libs, then downgrade the
    libs, then reinstall the packages. And make sure you have sensible
    config files. If you get stuck, there's always the big hammer
    (dpkg --force-depends and so on).

    If/when it breaks, you get to reinstall from scratch.

    I have a running second week old version of the same vm. I'm rapidly
    moving to abandon this and just swapping the instances around.

    This is why we tell people DO NOT MIX BINARY PACKAGES FROM MULTIPLE
    RELEASES.

    Yup. But this whole experience does make me wonder if there are
    situations where it is safe. For instance, if the thing you're
    installing from a different release does not cause an update anything
    from the current release to a new release. It feels like apt might be
    able to suss that out and if so, pop an "Are you sure??? (y/N)" in the terminal.

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  • From Greg Wooledge@21:1/5 to Michael Grant on Tue May 28 16:30:01 2024
    On Tue, May 28, 2024 at 09:12:18AM -0400, Michael Grant wrote:
    You will most likely need to remove the testing versions of these packages (apache2, git and so on) and then install the bookworm versions afterward.

    Those dependent packages (most if not all) are not from testing.
    apache2, perl, they are all installed from bookworm or
    bookworm-security.

    I am skeptical of this.

    That db5.3 from testing is uninstalled and reinstalling from stable is causing these other packages from stable to be uninstalled. I find
    that confusing.

    Let's say that you're right. You actually *did* download and downgrade
    these packages (and just didn't show us the details for some reason), but
    the packaging system is unhappy about what you're telling it to do,
    and it gets overly aggressive and wants to remove some things that you
    feel could remain in place.

    You could just *let it remove them*, and then reinstall them. If you've already downloaded and downgraded them to bookworm versions, then you
    probably still have the .deb files, so it wouldn't even require another download.

    But what about libc6? That one really worries me.

    As it should!

    # apt remove -s libc6

    DO NOT do this.

    Downgrade it. DO NOT remove it and then hope to reinstall it later.
    Removing libc6 will break everything.

    You seem to be flailing, so let me spell this out as explicitly as
    possible. When I say "downgrade a library package", I mean:

    1) Download the .deb file for the bookworm(-security) version of the
    library package.

    2) Run "dpkg -i libc6_whatever.deb".

    3) When you inevitably get dependency conflicts, download the additional
    library packages that need to be downgraded at the same time, and add
    them to the list.

    4) dpkg -i libc6_whatever.deb libwhomever.deb ....

    5) Repeat until it works.

    6) Helpful post-mess cleanup commands include "dpkg --configure -a" and
    "apt-get -f install". (Yes, that last one has install with no package
    names.)

    Apt is NOT built for downgrading. If you happen to get any positive
    results from an apt command that involves downgrading, you can consider
    that a pleasant surprise. Usually you need to invoke dpkg directly.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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  • From Michael Grant@21:1/5 to All on Tue May 28 19:10:01 2024
    # apt remove -s libc6

    DO NOT do this.

    Downgrade it. DO NOT remove it and then hope to reinstall it later.
    Removing libc6 will break everything.

    You seem to be flailing, so let me spell this out as explicitly as
    possible. When I say "downgrade a library package", I mean:

    1) Download the .deb file for the bookworm(-security) version of the
    library package.

    2) Run "dpkg -i libc6_whatever.deb".

    3) When you inevitably get dependency conflicts, download the additional
    library packages that need to be downgraded at the same time, and add
    them to the list.

    4) dpkg -i libc6_whatever.deb libwhomever.deb ....

    5) Repeat until it works.

    6) Helpful post-mess cleanup commands include "dpkg --configure -a" and
    "apt-get -f install". (Yes, that last one has install with no package
    names.)

    Apt is NOT built for downgrading. If you happen to get any positive
    results from an apt command that involves downgrading, you can consider
    that a pleasant surprise. Usually you need to invoke dpkg directly.

    Ah I see, I did not realise that's what you meant by downgrading it,
    thanks.

    So once I've done this dpkg -i to install a package, I can do that
    without removing the old one first?

    And, once I've hammered a package into place with dpkg, in the future,
    will apt take it into account as a dependency of things already
    installed even though apt itself didn't install or rather downgrade
    the package itself? The fact that I am dpkg installing it over a
    package that apt itself installed, perhaps this keeps apt happy?

    Thanks for your help. I use apt all the time to do upgrades but
    rarely do I ever need to get into weeds with it. It's a bit of a
    black box to me.



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  • From Greg Wooledge@21:1/5 to Michael Grant on Tue May 28 19:20:01 2024
    On Tue, May 28, 2024 at 01:00:24PM -0400, Michael Grant wrote:
    So once I've done this dpkg -i to install a package, I can do that
    without removing the old one first?

    Yes, dpkg will upgrade or downgrade the existing package.

    And, once I've hammered a package into place with dpkg, in the future,
    will apt take it into account as a dependency of things already
    installed even though apt itself didn't install or rather downgrade
    the package itself?

    Yes. Dpkg is the lower level tool. Apt is the higher level tool.
    The set of installed packages is tracked by dpkg (it's in the file /var/lib/dpkg/status which you can read if you like). Apt calls dpkg
    to do all of the installing, removing, etc. Apt just calculates the
    dependency tree and downloads the .deb files for dpkg to use.

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  • From Michael Grant@21:1/5 to All on Tue May 28 20:00:01 2024
    Max, your list looks very similiar to what I'm seeing.

    I seem to have suceeded in removing all of the testing packages from
    my backup instance, now, just need to flip the ips around and see if
    the ship still floats.

    The culprits that seemed to be causing the massive dependencies were
    libsasl2-2 and libsasl2-modules-db. Though not libsasl2-modules which
    i also have installed.

    Using apt to try and remove the first 2 were causing this:

    The following packages will be REMOVED:
    apache2 apache2-bin clamav clamav-daemon clamav-freshclam clamav-milter clamav-unofficial-sigs clamdscan colord curl dirmngr git gnupg gnupg2 gpg-wks-client
    libapache2-mod-php8.2 libapache2-mod-ruid2 libaprutil1-ldap libclamav11 libcurl3-gnutls libcurl4 libgphoto2-6 libldap-2.5-0 libmailutils9 libmemcached11 libpq5 libsane1
    libsasl2-2 mailutils mongo-tools opendkim opendkim-tools python-apt python3-certbot-apache python3-debianbts python3-pycurl python3-pysimplesoap python3-reportbug reportbug
    sane-utils sendmail sendmail-bin sensible-mda

    I sucked down those 3 packages and downgraded them via 'dpkg -i' and
    was able to uninstall and reinstall sendmail by apt and now, no more
    packages from testing.

    Whew, I won't do that again. But it's good to know how these things work!

    Thanks all for your help.

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