Limit Proxmox VE update versions (testing purposes), best way?

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BloodyIron

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Jan 14, 2013
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Hey so I'm building out some PoC stuff in my lab and I want to prevent my nodes from updating to v8.3.x as the testing I'm doing involves specific Ceph version aspects.

I'm not entirely sure the "recommended" way to do this as searching did not turn up reliable info on the matter.

Upgrading to v8.3 is part of this testing, but I need to replicate the particular environment as close as I can, and staying v8.2.x achieves that a lot more than v8.3. And I have v8.2 installed, but I next need to install Ceph and stuff like that. I really would prefer not to update to v8.3 in that process.

How should I go about doing this?
 
Daniel_Dog said:
I would just disable the Proxmox VE apt repositories.
This way it does not fetch Proxmox VE updates and only Debian 12 updates.

Do note that the Proxmox VE GUI will let you know it has no Proxmox VE repository to update from.
Click to expand...

Sure, but do you know if that would interfere with Ceph package installation stuff?
 
Daniel_Dog said:
Not if everything is already installed.
Removing the repository also in turn removes the packages it contains to install.
Click to expand...

It's not. This is the kind of thing I need to rebuild to test things. So that often includes reinstalling Ceph as part of rebuild.

... pretty sure disabling Apt repos doesn't automatically remove packages, not sure what you mean there.
 
Sorry if I was not really clear. (It’s getting late where I am.)

What I wanted to say is that if you remove a repository from APT, the packages the repository contents also disappear.
So you can only install not installed Proxmox VE packages if you have the Proxmox VE repository enabled.

Also I assume you use the no-subscription repository?
If so then the no-subscription repository gets updated daily, so it might be better to clone it and host your own local no-subscription repository if you want to make sure it installs exactly the same versions.
 
Daniel_Dog said:
Sorry if I was not really clear. (It’s getting late where I am.)

What I wanted to say is that if you remove a repository from APT, the packages the repository contents also disappear.
So you can only install not installed Proxmox VE packages if you have the Proxmox VE repository enabled.

Also I assume you use the no-subscription repository?
If so then the no-subscription repository gets updated daily, so it might be better to clone it and host your own local no-subscription repository if you want to make sure it installs exactly the same versions.
Click to expand...

I've never heard of disabling an apt repo forcing the packages to be removed. Can you prove that?

I think I probably should just test this on my end to find out :/ well thanks anyways
 
You could use apt-mark hold or apt-pinning for this. But please be aware that Proxmox has rolling releases so this might lead to Problems in the future
 
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the easiest way would be to install using an ISO before the versions you want to have as a base, then upgrade to exactly the versions you want to have ("apt install foo=X.Y.Z bar=A.B.C .."), snapshot the resulting state (either by doing the whole experiment inside VMs, or by using a snapshottable storage/FS for /), and then you can just roll back to that state when you want to start over (and not install updates during your experiment, of course ;))
 
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In addition to eveything that has already been said:
BloodyIron said:
Hey so I'm building out some PoC stuff in my lab and I want to prevent my nodes from updating to v8.3.x as the testing I'm doing involves specific Ceph version aspects.
Click to expand...
CEPH is a standalone repository (also for every major version), so this problem should not arise. You can disable the repositories independently.
 
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Thanks for the insights folks! Also, if we could get the ISO repo to re-upload an PVE v8.1.x ISO that would be stellar (and if that is possible/has happened, please tag me so I can check again, thanks!).
 
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