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Using Debian Long Term Support (LTS)

Security support for Debian 6 "Squeeze" will end on 2016-02-29. Until then please follow the instructions for using Squeeze LTS. The next LTS version is Debian 7 "Wheezy" and will be supported from 2016-04-26 to 2018-05-31. To receive security updates, your /etc/apt/sources.list should look like this one:

• deb http://httpredir.debian.org/debian/ wheezy main contrib non-free
  deb-src http://httpredir.debian.org/debian/ wheezy main contrib non-free
  
  deb http://security.debian.org/ wheezy/updates main contrib non-free
  deb-src http://security.debian.org/ wheezy/updates main contrib non-free
  
  deb http://httpredir.debian.org/debian wheezy-updates main contrib non-free
  deb-src http://httpredir.debian.org/debian wheezy-updates main contrib non-free

For Debian 7 "Wheezy" LTS there will be no requirement to add a separate wheezy-lts suite to your sources.list any more. In fact you will not notice the switch to LTS because after the official security support by the Debian Security Team ends, security updates will be provided via wheezy-updates. See also SourcesList for a general introduction to Debian's sources.list file.

Recommendations for upgrading from Squeeze LTS to Wheezy LTS

• Update your /etc/apt/sources.list according to the list above.

• Check apt.conf for legacy release pinning. If /etc/apt/apt.conf contains something like this:

  •    APT::Default-Release "squeeze-lts";

    then you must either comment it out, or replace it with:

       APT::Default-Release "wheezy";

• Update your system. apt-get update

• Install apt from Wheezy before upgrading your system. apt-get install apt -t wheezy

• Upgrade your system. apt-get upgrade

• Upgrade your system and remove obsolete packages. apt-get dist-upgrade

• Carefully check all debconf prompts and update configuration files as needed.

Using Debian squeeze (6.0) LTS

You can use LTS in adding the repository to your sources.list and updating your system. Not all packages get security updates. Make sure all your installed packages get updates.

Add squeeze-lts to your sources.list

Important: Squeeze-LTS will only support i386 and amd64. Users of other architectures are encouraged to upgrade to Debian 7 ("wheezy").

• for binary and source packages add these lines:

  deb http://httpredir.debian.org/debian/ squeeze-lts main contrib non-free
  deb-src http://httpredir.debian.org/debian/ squeeze-lts main contrib non-free

So that in total you have:

• deb http://httpredir.debian.org/debian/ squeeze main contrib non-free
  deb-src http://httpredir.debian.org/debian/ squeeze main contrib non-free
  
  deb http://httpredir.debian.org/debian squeeze-lts main contrib non-free
  deb-src http://httpredir.debian.org/debian squeeze-lts main contrib non-free

The security repository is not needed anymore, as the last Squeeze point release has been done. As part of the point release all packages from the security repo where copied to the main one.

You can add other repositories like Backports or deb-multimedia.

If you want more info on which mirrors to use, read debian mirrors.

You need to have an up-to-date debian-archive-keyring package before APT will trust the squeeze-lts suite. If you see a NO_PUBKEY warning after adding the squeeze-lts sources, run apt-get install debian-archive-keyring and try again.

Check apt.conf for legacy release pinning

If /etc/apt/apt.conf contains something like this:

APT::Default-Release "squeeze";

then you must either comment it out, or replace it with:

APT::Default-Release "squeeze-lts";

Otherwise, you risk not getting LTS updates on your system.

Update and upgrade

Run apt-get update and apt-get upgrade to update and upgrade your system

Check for unsupported packages

As announced, not all packages of the Debian archive is supported by Squeeze-LTS. To check whether you have unsupported packages installed on your machine, please install the debian-security-support package (use the version in squeeze-lts, unstable will not work as expected). A check for new unsupported packages is run every time packages are installed. You can also run the 'check-support-status' utility manually to get a list of all unsupported packages installed on your system.

What can I do if security support for a package has ended?

You can choose between different options:

• Remove the unmaintained package.

• Install the software from Backports. You can get updates by the backports repository (see also http://backports.debian.org/Instructions/).

• Keep the software and make sure, that neither already known nor new security issues affect your system.

• If you want to provide patches subscribe to LTS/Contact#debian-lts and present your idea.

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