R3.0 - R3.1: Upgrade of Debian TemplateVMs crashes

[hed...@tutanota.com]

Summary of Problem: During a fresh installation of Qubes R3.1, all restored Debian TemplateVMs crash during the apt-get dist-upgrade and can no longer be restarted.

Details: My preferred Qubes upgrade method is to do a fresh install to a new disk and backup/restore AppVMs and TemplateVMs from the previous version. This has highlighted two problems (the minor one first):

1. The documentation at https://www.qubes-os.org/doc/releases/3.1/release-notes/#upgrading details two upgrade methods:
[quote]The easiest and safest way to upgrade to Qubes R3.1 is to install it from scratch and use qubes backup and restore tools for migrating of all of the user VMs.

Users of Qubes R3.0 can upgrade using experimental procedure.[/quote]

I can find no reference in the fresh-installation instructions for upgrading the TemplateVMs, which only seems to be mentioned in the "experimental method" section. Perhaps the term "experimental" is no longer appropriate and, if so, should ideally be dropped.

2. After a fresh installation of R3.1, I restored all AppVMs, HVMs and TemplateVMs (from R3.0) to the new system, I upgraded the Fedora TemplateVMs without problem using the "experimental" procedure but ALL 3 of my Debian-based TemplateVMs crash during the apt-get dist-upgrade step, leaving the VMs in an unusable state (cannot be restarted).

Since this is consistent across all three of my Debian-based TemplateVMs (debian-8, debian-8-nonfree and debian-8-sandbox) it seems likely to be a bug. Right now, I've restored all three from backup and they are still usable in R3.0 form but some things (eg VM Manager Update) no longer work.

Is this a known problem? Is there a solution or workaround?

[Andrew David Wong]

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On 2016-08-02 04:19, hed...@tutanota.com wrote:
> Summary of Problem: During a fresh installation of Qubes R3.1, all
> restored Debian TemplateVMs crash during the apt-get dist-upgrade and can
> no longer be restarted.
>
> Details: My preferred Qubes upgrade method is to do a fresh install to a
> new disk and backup/restore AppVMs and TemplateVMs from the previous
> version. This has highlighted two problems (the minor one first):
>
> 1. The documentation at
> https://www.qubes-os.org/doc/releases/3.1/release-notes/#upgrading details
> two upgrade methods: [quote]The easiest and safest way to upgrade to Qubes

> R3.1 is to install it fromscratch and use qubes backup and restore tools
> formigrating of all of the user VMs. Users of Qubes R3.0 can upgrade using
> experimentalprocedure.[/quote]

>
>
>
> I can find no reference in the fresh-installation instructions for
> upgrading the TemplateVMs, which only seems to be mentioned in the
> "experimental method" section. Perhaps the term "experimental" is no longer
> appropriate and, if so, should ideally be dropped.
>
> 2. After a fresh installation of R3.1, I restored all AppVMs, HVMs and
> TemplateVMs (from R3.0) to the new system, I upgraded the Fedora
> TemplateVMs without problem using the "experimental" procedure but ALL 3 of
> my Debian-based TemplateVMs crash during the apt-get dist-upgrade step,
> leaving the VMs in an unusable state (cannot be restarted).
>
> Since this is consistent across all three of my Debian-based TemplateVMs
> (debian-8, debian-8-nonfree and debian-8-sandbox) it seems likely to be a
> bug. Right now, I've restored all three from backup and they are still
> usable in R3.0 form but some things (eg VM Manager Update) no longer work.
>
> Is this a known problem? Is there a solution or workaround?
>

Thanks for the report. Tracking your issue here:

https://github.com/QubesOS/qubes-issues/issues/2224

- --
Andrew David Wong (Axon)
Community Manager, Qubes OS
https://www.qubes-os.org
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