I have run "touch '/please-remove-proxmox-ve'" and cannot reinstall the proxmox-ve

[Daniel Adam]

When updating to Proxmox VE 8.0, I was supposed to run touch '/please-remove-proxmox-ve' because otherwise some things would not install. I thought no problem just reinstall later. but now this error comes up

root@home:~# apt install proxmox-ve
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:
 python3-cephfs : Depends: python3 (< 3.10) but 3.11.2-1+b1 is to be installed
 python3-rados : Depends: python3 (< 3.10) but 3.11.2-1+b1 is to be installed
 python3-rbd : Depends: python3 (< 3.10) but 3.11.2-1+b1 is to be installed
 python3-rgw : Depends: python3 (< 3.10) but 3.11.2-1+b1 is to be installed
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.

then I tried apt --fix-broken install.
this is what came up

root@home:~# apt --fix-broken install                                     
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Reading state information... Done
The following packages will be REMOVED:
  pve-kernel-5.15.116-1-pve
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 1 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
2 not fully installed or removed.
After this operation, 400 MB disk space will be freed.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n] y
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/bin/apt-listchanges", line 29, in <module>
    import apt_pkg
ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'apt_pkg'
(Reading database ... 74358 files and directories currently installed.)
Removing pve-kernel-5.15.116-1-pve (5.15.116-1) ...
Examining /etc/kernel/postrm.d.
run-parts: executing /etc/kernel/postrm.d/initramfs-tools 5.15.116-1-pve /boot/vmlinuz-5.15.116-1-pve
update-initramfs: Deleting /boot/initrd.img-5.15.116-1-pve
run-parts: executing /etc/kernel/postrm.d/proxmox-auto-removal 5.15.116-1-pve /boot/vmlinuz-5.15.116-1-pve
/etc/kernel/postrm.d/proxmox-auto-removal: 4: .: cannot open /usr/share/proxmox-kernel-helper/scripts/functions: No such file
run-parts: /etc/kernel/postrm.d/proxmox-auto-removal exited with return code 2
Failed to process /etc/kernel/postrm.d at /var/lib/dpkg/info/pve-kernel-5.15.116-1-pve.postrm line 14.
dpkg: error processing package pve-kernel-5.15.116-1-pve (--remove):
 installed pve-kernel-5.15.116-1-pve package post-removal script subprocess returned error exit status 1
dpkg: too many errors, stopping
Errors were encountered while processing:
 pve-kernel-5.15.116-1-pve
Processing was halted because there were too many errors.
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)
root@home:~#

i tried to reinstall the python packages but again i got only this error

I just don't know what to do!

 

[BobhWasatch]

Please post the contents of /etc/apt/sources.list and the contents of any files in /etc/apt/sources.list.d. The output of "apt update" might also be helpful.

 

[Daniel Adam]

Please post the contents of /etc/apt/sources.list and the contents of any files in /etc/apt/sources.list.d. The output of "apt update" might also be helpful.

Thanks for the quick reply here are all the outputs


/etc/apt/sources.list

deb http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian bookworm main contrib
deb http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian bookworm-updates main contrib

# security updates
deb http://security.debian.org bookworm-security main contrib

/etc/apt/sources.list.d/ceph.list

deb http://download.proxmox.com/debian/ceph-pacific bullseye main

/etc/apt/sources.list.d/pve-install-repo.list

deb [arch=amd64] http://download.proxmox.com/debian/pve bookworm pve-no-subscription

apt update

root@home:~# apt update
Hit:1 http://security.debian.org bookworm-security InRelease
Hit:2 http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian bookworm InRelease
Get:3 http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian bookworm-updates InRelease [52.1 kB]
Hit:4 http://download.proxmox.com/debian/ceph-pacific bullseye InRelease
Hit:5 http://download.proxmox.com/debian/pve bookworm InRelease
Fetched 52.1 kB in 1s (68.1 kB/s)
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Reading state information... Done
All packages are up to date.

 

[Maximiliano]

Hello, I think you should use

deb http://download.proxmox.com/debian/ceph-quincy bookworm no-subscription

instead of ceph-pacific repos.

 

[Daniel Adam]

I now have a new problem, I wanted to reboot the system to see if that would solve anything. Now I get this error when booting.



I have tried to boot via another kernel version which worked but I can no longer log in via ssh. I also can't login into the system because I can't use my ssh key.


However, I did not have the option of using kernel version 6.2, which was supposed to be installed with the new update.

 

[Daniel Adam]

Everything is broken by this one command...

Is there any way to connect the hard drives to another pc, save the settings, containers & vms andreinstall everything again?

 

[BobhWasatch]

Everything is broken by this one command...

Is there any way to connect the hard drives to another pc, save the settings, containers & vms andreinstall everything again?

You don't have the new kernel because you removed PVE. You don't have the old kernel because of your failed attempt to fix the situation removed it. The commands did what you told them to do!

Based on your question, I'm guessing you don't have VM backups. If you did it would be pretty easy to re-install PVE and restore the VM's. Yes, in the alternative you could possibly attach the hard drive to another machine and get the VM disk images off it. How you do that depends a lot on what your configuration was (ZFS, LVM, plain ext4, VM's in files or VM's as block devices, etc). For instance, if they were on ZFS you'll need a Linux or *BSD box with ZFS support. You could also buy a new drive, install PVE on that, and then attach the old one to recover the VM's.

For future reference, if you try to install something and apt wants to remove seemingly-unrelated things you have done something wrong.
Stop and figure out what it was before proceeding. Removing and reinstalling is not going to work because the conflict that caused apt to want to remove the thing is going to prevent it being re-installed, as you discovered.

 

[Dunuin]

touch '/please-remove-proxmox-ve'

Maybe this should be renamed to "touch '/please-screw-up-my-proxmox-ve'" with a hint to check for wrong repos when so many people don't get that this is a feature to warn people that what they are trying is wrong and will destroy the PVE installation...not the first time this year I'm reading this.

 

[BobhWasatch]

I don't think it would matter because of human psychology. People get in a frame of mind where the warnings are perceived as getting in the way of what they are trying to do. They become focused on clearing the obstacle rather than understanding what they are being warned about.

I must say I've done it myself. Likewise, I'm very diligent about backups because I've been caught without them a few times. I think they call that "learning by experience" 8->