Switching Stable to LTS

[Piotr Kowalczyk]

Good morning, 

In short: I'm trying to switch stable flatcar machines to lts; but I can't understand what's going on. This is running on Azure. 

1. if I'm using azure kinvolk:flatcar-container-linux-free:lts2022:3033.3.6 images, all seems fine.

2. For stable machines (kinvolk:flatcar-container-linux-free:stable:3227.2.3), when trying to switch update group (/etc/flatcar/update.conf) from `stable` to `lts`, I'm getting: "/etc/flatcar/update.conf: DOWNLOAD_USER and DOWNLOAD_PASSWORD are missing to download LTS updates." upon ssh login. I have no idea where  to get it from. 

Now questions:

- is this possible to switch from stable to lts? How can I do that? 

- I can't find any reliable information in the docs (https://flatcar-linux.org/docs/latest/setup/releases/switching-channels/) or on the Internet which says that LTS is a paid plan, and what is suggested with needed user and password. On the contrary, it says it's rather available to community: https://www.flatcar.org//blog/2022/05/flatcar-container-linux-long-term-support-lts-channel-and-advanced-features-now-available-to-community/. So is it free or not?

What I'm trying to accomplish really is to be able to freely switch stable, lts, lts-xxxx releases with just updating update group on machines running in Azure. Is this possible? 

I'd be super thankful if someone could help me to sort that out or redirect to some place where I can find answers. 

Best, 

Piotr

[Kai Lüke]

Hi,

yes, you can switch to LTS from Stable, the DOWNLOAD_* warning is outdated now.

The part you missed is in https://flatcar-linux.org/docs/latest/setup/releases/switching-channels/#customizing-channel-configuration
"The public Nebraska update service does not offer downgrades. If you’re switching from a channel with a higher Flatcar Container Linux version than the new channel, your machine won’t be updated again until the new channel contains a higher version number."

I recommend you to follow https://flatcar-linux.org/docs/latest/setup/releases/switching-channels/#jump-to-another-channel-with-flatcar-update

You may also consider using "lts-2022" to opt out of major version updates:
https://flatcar-linux.org/docs/latest/setup/releases/switching-channels/#freezing-an-lts-stream

Regards,

Kai

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[Piotr Kowalczyk]

I've found the docs you're referring to later on, but the DOWNLOAD_* warning was pretty misleading, I hope this will be fixed soon. 

All is clear now, and indeed this works just gorgeously. 

Thank you! 

best,

Piotr