How to update Proxmox safely?

[alnash]

Hi,

I have a rather old Proxmox installation (w/o subscription) with 3 running VMs
"Updates" tab in GUI says "Origin: Debian (59 items)" and "Origin: Proxmox (21 items"). As I see, there're 80 packages to update.

The problem is that I'm pretty afraid of breaking something during update. It's a pretty old production server with no documentation...
Actually, it still works, maybe it's better to leave it as is?

Anyway, what can be the best practices for a safe update? Is it possible to update incrementally, package by package?

 

[mira]

Please provide the output of pveversion -v.
The usual and only way is to run apt update followed by apt full-upgrade. This will update all packages to the latest version of that major version. For example PVE 6.x will be updated to the latest PVE 6.4.

If you want to upgrade to the latest 7.1 version, you can follow the upgrade guides:
PVE 4 to 5: https://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/Upgrade_from_4.x_to_5.0
PVE 5 to 6: https://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/Upgrade_from_5.x_to_6.0
PVE 6 to 7: https://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/Upgrade_from_6.x_to_7.0

It is not possible to skip any of those. You'll have to do them all in order.

 

[aaron]

And to be on the safe side, create backups of your guests

 

[Dunuin]

And you could use tools like the proxmox-backup-client or clonezilla to create a backup of your entire system. For example boot from a clonezilla usb stick (so that your PVE system disks aren't in use), then create a blocklevel backup of your entire system disks and save it as an image on a network share or USB-HDD. If then something goes wrong you could restore the disks, because once upgraded you can't downgrade it.

 

[grin]

And don't try to skip reboots. Multiple proxmox components (lxcfs comes to mind) cannot survive the upgrade, especially around from 5 to 6.
Also old proxmox neglected to freeze ha manager and had a nasty habit of rebooting in the middle of the upgrade, and I am not sure this is mentioned in those older upgrade suggestions. Stopping hrm and crm may or may not save some frustrations. ;-)

Also if you use containers prepare yourself mentally that very old guests may behave strangely (= may need upgrades, possily manual massaging), especially if they were infected with the plague called systemd.

 

[alnash]

pveversion -v :

prox:~$ pveversion -v
perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:
    LANGUAGE = (unset),
    LC_ALL = (unset),
    LANG = "ru_RU.UTF-8"
    are supported and installed on your system.
perl: warning: Falling back to the standard locale ("C").
proxmox-ve: 6.4-1 (running kernel: 5.4.128-1-pve)
pve-manager: 6.4-13 (running version: 6.4-13/9f411e79)
pve-kernel-helper: 6.4-6
pve-kernel-5.4: 6.4-5
pve-kernel-5.4.128-1-pve: 5.4.128-2
ceph-fuse: 12.2.11+dfsg1-2.1+b1
corosync: 3.1.2-pve1
criu: 3.11-3
glusterfs-client: 5.5-3
ifupdown: residual config
ifupdown2: 3.0.0-1+pve4~bpo10
libjs-extjs: 6.0.1-10
libknet1: 1.20-pve1
libproxmox-acme-perl: 1.1.0
libproxmox-backup-qemu0: 1.1.0-1
libpve-access-control: 6.4-3
libpve-apiclient-perl: 3.1-3
libpve-common-perl: 6.4-3
libpve-guest-common-perl: 3.1-5
libpve-http-server-perl: 3.2-3
libpve-storage-perl: 6.4-1
libqb0: 1.0.5-1
libspice-server1: 0.14.2-4~pve6+1
lvm2: 2.03.02-pve4
lxc-pve: 4.0.6-2
lxcfs: 4.0.6-pve1
novnc-pve: 1.1.0-1
proxmox-backup-client: 1.1.13-2
proxmox-mini-journalreader: 1.1-1
proxmox-widget-toolkit: 2.6-1
pve-cluster: 6.4-1
pve-container: 3.3-6
pve-docs: 6.4-2
pve-edk2-firmware: 2.20200531-1
pve-firewall: 4.1-4
pve-firmware: 3.3-1
pve-ha-manager: 3.1-1
pve-i18n: 2.3-1
pve-qemu-kvm: 5.2.0-6
pve-xtermjs: 4.7.0-3
qemu-server: 6.4-2
smartmontools: 7.2-pve2
spiceterm: 3.1-1
vncterm: 1.6-2
zfsutils-linux: 2.0.5-pve1~bpo10+1

Well, actually I don't want to _upgrade_ the server, say from 6.x to 7.x, I only want to _update_ its packages.
Besides, it's a remote server, I can't get physical access to it, if something happens...
I backup my VMs daily with shapshots, but not sure how to backup the whole server.

 

[aaron]

I only want to _update_ its packages.

apt update and then apt full-upgrade. If a new kernel is installed, then a reboot should be done as well.

You should also consider when to upgrade to the latest version because Proxmox VE 6 will be EOL this summer.

Besides, it's a remote server, I can't get physical access to it, if something happens...

Do you have an out-of-band management interface on it like IPMI, iLO, iDrac, ...? If not, then I personally would make sure to either plan larger upgrades with an on premise appointment or have some remote hands and ideally some other remote console option to be able to access the machine at all times during the boot process.