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Status of Debian Edu "Bullseye"

(development started in July 2019)

Released at the Debian 11 Bullseye release date (August 14 2021)
See the release announcement.

Updated at Debian 11.2 Bullseye point release date (Dec 18 2021)
Among others, the debian-edu-doc-* packages and the debian-edu-config package have been updated, see the related announcement.
As an alternative for diskless workstations, it is now possible to install and maintain a dedicated LTSP chroot (instead of using the SquashFS image from the server filesystem); see the debian-edu-ltsp-install manual page for details.

Updated at Debian 11.11 Bullseye point release date (Aug 31 2024)
See the related announcement; there are no changes concerning Debian Edu packages.
After having upgraded a system with LTSP server profile, run debian-edu-ltsp-install --diskless_workstation yes to update the SquashFS image for Diskless Workstations and debian-edu-pxeinstall to update the PXE installation environment; the second action is also needed for systems with Main server profile.

Installation

Changes

• At first boot of a combined server the SquashFS image for diskless workstation support is generated. This will take quite some time.

• In case of a separate or an additional LTSP server required information for setting up the LTSP client environment isn't complete during installation. Setup can be done once the system has been added with GOsa². For details, run man debian-edu-ltsp-install on the LTSP server, or read the debian-edu-ltsp-install manual page online.

Hints

• Instead of the default xfce desktop environment, mate, gnome, lxde, lxqt, cinnamon or kde can be used by editing the kernel desktop parameter (default: desktop=xfce).

• Dropping the modules= and desktop= items from the kernel command line completely allows one to use all ISO images for stock Debian installations.

  See the Bullseye manual installation chapter how to edit kernel command line parameters.

Installation media

Debian Edu ISOs for 64-bit and very old 32-bit PCs (both AMD and Intel processors) are available from the usual Debian places.

Download using HTTPS

The -edu- netinst iso image can be used for installation from CD/DVD and USB flash drives and is available for two Debian architectures: amd64 (64-bit) or i386 (32-bit). As the name implies, Internet access is required for the installation.

• https://get.debian.org/cdimage/archive/latest-oldstable/amd64/iso-cd/

• https://get.debian.org/cdimage/archive/latest-oldstable/i386/iso-cd/

The -edu- BD images are 5.8 GB (amd64) / 5.9 GB (i386) large and can be used for installation of amd64 or i386 machines, also without access to the Internet. Like the netinst image it can be installed on USB flash drives or disk media of sufficient size.

• https://get.debian.org/cdimage/archive/latest-oldstable/amd64/iso-bd/

• https://get.debian.org/cdimage/archive/latest-oldstable/i386/iso-bd/

Unofficial images including non-free firmware - use only if really needed

• https://get.debian.org/cdimage/unofficial/non-free/cd-including-firmware/archive/latest-oldstable/amd64/iso-cd/

• https://get.debian.org/cdimage/unofficial/non-free/cd-including-firmware/archive/latest-oldstable/amd64/iso-bd/

Verify the downloaded image file

Detailed instructions for verifying these images are part of the Debian-CD FAQ.

Known problems that can be fixed locally

• On the main server, the ntp package should be installed, recommended by the education-main-server package. Due to recent changes, systemd-timesyncd gets installed earlier and prevents the ntp package from being installed; see 1021687. (Fixed in bookworm, but not in bullseye.) To fix it, run as root user on the main server:

  • apt install ntp -y
    to install the package and

    cf-agent -I -D installation
    to update the time server configuration.

• If using thin clients, users should turn off compositing to avoid display artefacts; see 1008602.

• On a separate LTSP server the DHCP service fails to start after stopping it; see 1021414. (Fixed in bookworm, but not in bullseye.) To fix it, run as root user on the LTSP server:

  • sed -i 's/slapd/nslcd/' /usr/share/debian-edu-config/isc-dhcp-server.service.eth1_only

    cf-agent -I -D installation

• On systems with Main server and/or LTSP server profiles the network setup fails to work correctly in case the LXQt desktop environment is used; see: 1021688. (Fixed in bookworm, but not in bullseye.) To fix it, replace connman with network-manager-gnome (ConnMan is the preferred LXQt network manager):

  • apt install network-manager-gnome -y

    apt purge connman -y

  Reboot the system. Also, if Diskless workstations are used, rebuild the related image:

  • debian-edu-ltsp-install --diskless_workstation yes

• Thin client chroot installation is broken in case the type is (mini-)desktop and the language is English, see 1024033. (Fixed in bookworm, but not in bullseye.) To fix it, use en-gb instead of en as language code (temporarily):

  • Set LANGCODE="en-gb" in /etc/debian-edu/config.
    Run debian-edu-ltsp-install --thin_type desktop

• Installation of a dedicated diskless workstaion chroot is broken in case the BD ISO image isn't available, see 1033451. To fix it on a system with 'LTSP-Server' profile, run as root:

  • sed -i 's/if ! mountpoint/if [ "true" == "$BD_ISO" ] \&\& ! mountpoint/' /usr/sbin/debian-edu-ltsp-install

Known problems that need to be fixed elsewhere

• isc-dhcp-server-ldap: fails to activate the service, see 971275. After (re)booting the main server, it might take some minutes for the DHCP service to become available. This seems to happen randomly.

• X2Go doesn't register users with utmp/wtmp, see 890517.

• ldapvi sorts entries alphabetically which can break specific modifications where the order of the definitions is important, see 820790.

Manual

• Our documentation could further be improved: eg by proof-reading and improving language+grammar used, by updating outdated entries, etc

Fixed and done

• The /usr/share/debian-edu-config/tools/pxe-addfirmware script still uses the old /var/lib/tftpboot path and fails, see 995610. As a workaround, replace /var/lib/tftpboot with /srv/tftp.

• Real support for LTSP chroot creation and maintenance is missing, see 996103 for details.

• debian-edu-ltsp-install: Netboot image exposes private data and crypto keys, see 993935.

• Sending system emails from machines inside the internal network is broken, see 989338.

• DHCP configuration is broken, see 989340.

• The debian-edu-ltsp-install script fails to setup thin client support if used outside d-i, see 989342.

• Automatic partitioning fails on UEFI systems, see 988396.

• The first user doesn't have a Samba account, see 987632.

  • As a workaround, run smbpasswd -a <firstusername> as root on the main server.

• Thin client support is broken if a combined server is installed in offline mode, see 987633.

  • As a workaround, run as root on the main server once Internet connection is available:

    rm -rf /srv/ltsp/thin
    debian-edu-ltsp-install --diskless_workstation no --thin_type bare

• Diskless workstation support is broken in case of a 32-bit combined server installation, see 987634.

  • As a workaround, run mv /srv/tftp/ltsp/ltsp.img /srv/tftp/ltsp/x86_32/ltsp.img as root on the main server.
    Choose x86_32 from the iPXE menu to start a diskless workstation.

• major manual update due to LTSP and Samba changes, minor one for CUPS; also document the (optional) freeRADIUS setup.
• add Bullseye artwork Homeworld.

• GOSa²: deprecated implode() function usage with PHP 7.4 messes up GUI items, see 964600.

• GOsa²: Fatal error when opening user list, see 941165 (also for a possible workaround).

• GOSa²: password encryption/decryption broken with PHP 7.4, see 964318.

• Mail server configuration is broken after Exim upgrade to exim4 4.94

• major LTSP update in bullseye, see https://lists.debian.org/debian-edu/2019/11/msg00037.html

• LTSP 19.x: 'ltsp image /' fails to generate usable image, see 946946. For a workaround see the bugreport. [The command stills fails but LTSP 20.x now provides a way to generate the image in case of advanced partitioning.]

• integrate icingaweb2

• Xfce is missing a volume control in the panel, see 913610. [Unlikely to be fixed in Buster.]

• fetch-ldap-cert should have independent conditions for host and LTSP chroot, see 934380.

• Fix fetch-ldap-cert to improve security, see 931413.

• Drop obsolete code in d-i/finish-install, see 923675.

• Fix sudo-ldap configuration, see 929964.

• Fix LTSP related PXE configuration, see 928756.

• Fix Firefox NFS related issue, see 930122.

• Fix krb5 related logging configuration, see 931366.

• Set LTSP chroot path in /etc/exports file if LTSP server has i386 arch, see 931680.

• Include the LDAP server certificate in initial LTSP chroot image, see 932828.

• Provide Debian Edu RootCA certificate for download, see 933183.

• Fix loss of dynamically allocated v4 IP address, see 933580.