apt-get autoremove after apt upgrade wiped the Proxmox

[Dávur Eyðunsson Sørensen]

In brief:

• Early 2017: Installed PVE ontop a Debian 8.x according to https://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/Install_Proxmox_VE_on_Debian_Jessie
  
• Late 2017: Upgraded Debian to version 9 Stretch
• Early 2018: Ran update for Meltdown/Spectre in week 2
  • week 3: /boot reportedly nearly out of free space
    • Ran apt-get autoremove as I've done with no hassle for years, so I was too careless for a moment there and didn't study the details in the removal listing and:
      
    • Boom: most of Proxmox was removed!!
  • Managed to re-install Proxmox and problem solved... pheeeewww

No excuse on my part - I should have paid closer attention, no doubt about that! but this shouldn't be a problem in the first place - is there some step, I might have missed?
Suggestions?

 

[tom]

I do not know which step you missed on the upgrade but reading the apt removal information is always recommended .

And please always run:

> apt dist-upgrade (instead of apt upgrade)

 

[Dávur Eyðunsson Sørensen]

I was being too brief, perhaps

Obviously, when upgrading from Jessie to Stretch last december, I ran:
> apt update
> apt upgrade
> apt dist-upgrade

which was all good. Last week I ran
> apt update
> apt upgrade
and a subsequent reboot - all good.

It was only after yesterday's
> apt-get autoremove
that I got the problem.

I have never encountered this before after a autoremove and I've been using Debian for quite a number of years.
So: where to look for the reason? Why were all the Proxmox components marked for removal?

 

[tom]

Never run "apt upgrade".

In order to make sure that packages are not removed by autoremove, make sure that proxmox-ve package is installed:

> apt install proxmox-ve

(I do not see reason why your host remove the packages.)

 

[Dávur Eyðunsson Sørensen]

Never run "apt upgrade".

That means: never ever run "apt upgrade" when running Proxmox? It's all "apt dist-upgrade" every time!??!?

 

[tom]

That means: never ever run "apt upgrade" when running Proxmox? It's all "apt dist-upgrade" every time!??!?

Yes, I suggest you read our docs in the first run, this will answer a lot of your questions before posting here.

https://pve.proxmox.com/pve-docs/pve-admin-guide.html#_system_software_updates

 

[Dávur Eyðunsson Sørensen]

Point well taken - thanks

 

[Helmo]

I was also seeing this on a server, I'm fairly sure I "always" run dist-upgrade...

It turned out I still had the linux-image-amd64 package installed. In the install docs removing that is an optional step... but maybe it needs a bit more emphasis.

Here's the output of a dist upgrade with extra debug output: `apt-get dist-upgrade -u -o Debug:kgProblemResolver=1`

Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree    
Reading state information... Done
Starting pkgProblemResolver with broken count: 1
Starting 2 pkgProblemResolver with broken count: 1
Investigating (0) pve-firmware:amd64 < 2.0-3 @ii mK Ib >
Broken pve-firmware:amd64 Conflicts on firmware-linux-free:amd64 < none -> 3.4 @un uN >
  Considering firmware-linux-free:amd64 1 as a solution to pve-firmware:amd64 1
  Removing pve-firmware:amd64 rather than change firmware-linux-free:amd64
Investigating (0) proxmox-ve:amd64 < 5.1-41 @ii mK Ib >
Broken proxmox-ve:amd64 Depends on pve-firmware:amd64 < 2.0-3 @ii mR >
  Considering pve-firmware:amd64 1 as a solution to proxmox-ve:amd64 0
  Removing proxmox-ve:amd64 rather than change pve-firmware:amd64
Done
Calculating upgrade... Done
The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:
  apparmor attr bridge-utils ceph-common corosync criu cstream dtach faketime fontconfig fontconfig-config fonts-dejavu-core fonts-font-awesome gdisk glusterfs-client glusterfs-common ifenslave ipset libacl1-dev libanyevent-http-perl libanyevent-perl libapparmor-perl
  libappconfig-perl libasound2 libasound2-data libasync-interrupt-perl libasyncns0 libattr1-dev libauthen-pam-perl libbabeltrace-ctf1 libbabeltrace1 libboost-iostreams1.62.0 libboost-program-options1.62.0 libboost-random1.62.0 libboost-regex1.62.0 libboost-system1.62.0
  libboost-thread1.62.0 libc-dev-bin libc6-dev libcaca0 libcairo2 libcephfs1 libcfg6 libclone-perl libcmap4 libcorosync-common4 libcpg4 libcrypt-openssl-bignum-perl libcrypt-openssl-random-perl libcrypt-openssl-rsa-perl libdatrie1 libdevel-cycle-perl libdw1 libev-perl libfaketime
  libfcgi-bin libfcgi0ldbl libfile-chdir-perl libfile-readbackwards-perl libfile-sync-perl libfilesys-df-perl libflac8 libfontconfig1 libgnutlsxx28 libgraphite2-3 libguard-perl libharfbuzz0b libibverbs1 libice6 libio-multiplex-perl libio-stringy-perl libipset3 libiscsi7
  libjemalloc1 libjpeg62-turbo libjs-extjs liblinux-inotify2-perl liblockfile-simple-perl liblog-agent-perl libmime-base32-perl libnet-dbus-perl libnet-dns-perl libnet1 libnetfilter-log1 libnl-3-200 libnl-route-3-200 libnspr4 libnss3 libogg0 libpango-1.0-0 libpangocairo-1.0-0
  libpangoft2-1.0-0 libpixman-1-0 libprotobuf-c1 libprotobuf10 libpulse0 libpve-access-control libpve-common-perl libpve-guest-common-perl libpve-http-server-perl libpve-storage-perl libqb0 libquorum5 librados2 librados2-perl libradosstriper1 librbd1 librdmacm1 librgw2 librrd8
  librrds-perl libsdl1.2debian libsm6 libsnappy1v5 libsndfile1 libstatgrab10 libstring-shellquote-perl libtemplate-perl libthai-data libthai0 libtie-ixhash-perl libtotem-pg5 liburcu4 libusbredirparser1 libuuid-perl libvorbis0a libvorbisenc2 libvotequorum8 libx11-xcb1
  libxcb-render0 libxcb-shm0 libxi6 libxml-twig-perl libxml-xpathengine-perl libxrender1 libxslt1.1 libxtst6 linux-libc-dev lxc-pve lxcfs lzop manpages-dev novnc-pve numactl proxmox-widget-toolkit pve-cluster pve-container pve-docs pve-firewall pve-ha-manager pve-i18n
  pve-libspice-server1 pve-manager pve-qemu-kvm pve-xtermjs python-cephfs python-cffi-backend python-chardet python-cryptography python-enum34 python-idna python-ipaddr python-ipaddress python-openssl python-pkg-resources python-protobuf python-pyasn1 python-rados python-rbd
  python-requests python-setuptools python-six python-urllib3 qemu-server rrdcached socat spiceterm sqlite3 uidmap vncterm xsltproc
Use 'apt autoremove' to remove them.
The following packages will be REMOVED:
  proxmox-ve pve-firmware
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  firmware-linux-free linux-image-4.9.0-6-amd64
The following packages will be upgraded:
  libpve-common-perl linux-image-amd64 proxmox-widget-toolkit pve-container pve-manager pve-qemu-kvm qemu-server
7 upgraded, 2 newly installed, 2 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 0 B/47.6 MB of archives.
After this operation, 56.5 MB of additional disk space will be used.