Debian 10 "Buster"

[fredrikj]

I've compiled a new version with the missing nftables modules. Let me know how it goes...

It works! With the new kernel /etc/nftables.conf loaded without errors and my wifi and lan traffic is now masqueraded by nftables as they previously were with iptables. Thank you.

For the record, heres how I migrated from legacy iptabes to nftables.

CAVEAT EMPTOR! I'm a complete nftables newbie. Do not blindly copy commands from the internet. If^H^Hwhen something breaks you get to keep both pieces. No refunds!

• install the nftables package
• use the following command to convert your current iptables rules to nftables format.

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iptables-save | iptables-restore-translate -f /dev/stdin

• verify that the generated nftables rules seems reasonable.
• add the output from the command to the file /etc/nftables.conf
• remove all currently active iptables rules, ie iptables -F.
• load the nftables rules, ie systemctl start nftables.
• verify that it works as expected.
• remove whatever script you used to load iptables rules.

[MouettE]

The new kernel is now in the repository.

Thanks for your return !

[Pressurized]

I am extremely grateful for the work MouettE's done. I've been using bubbas since August 2007 from the original bubba through the b2 to the b3. I have nothing but respect for these well-made machines; they've been completely reliable, a joy to use and have helped me learn Linux.

Being able to put the latest Debian on my b3 has given it a new lease of life; I was coming to the conclusion that it may have to be retired so now it's been saved.

I installed buster from scratch onto the 3TB HDD it has been using recently, giving it a complete wipe. There have been no insurmountable issues so far and I don't foresee any now.

Minor points are that the drive's main partition after installation didn't fill the drive. I removed it and expanded the partition via a PC and gparted. At this time I realised it's ext3 so I may try upgrading it to ext4 but that's not a show-stopper if I fail (I don't recall what FS it had prior to the wipe).

Running dpkg-reconfigure was initially puzzling as logging in as excito then doing su didn't change PATH to include dpkg-reconfigure's directory. After understanding this I was able to get by, eventually installing sudo and disabling login to the root account ('sudo -i' works to achieve the same effect after this). I'm not familiar with using su

Fantastic work MouettE! Many, many thanks.

[Gordon]

Did a quick scan on the installer as published on GitHub. Seems like the Debian installation uses the full disk as 'system' except for the last bit being used as swap? If you convert that to ext4 you will not be able to boot the B3 because u-boot requires the partition that holds the kernel uImage to be ext3.

Should you still wish to run Debian from an ext4 formatted partition you could try use the bootloader from Bubbagen, however this will require you to replace the current kernel uImage with a regular zImage.

[Pressurized]

Gordon, thanks for your reply.
I looked at some backup files and found my b3 has always run ext3 with no ill effects. Were I to run into limitations of ext3 - perhaps total file size - I would likely partition my drive to have a separate ext4 home partition while retaining the booting partition as ext3.

[Gordon]

Agreed, I myself actually like to have folders that are exposed to external users to be separated from the root partition. That way, if they cause an out of disk space it won't crash the whole system. Should you go ahead and split of `home` I would suggest that you keep the swap partition as the second partition on the disk (i.e. move it forward) and make the new `home` partition last. The reason is that the last part of the disk has the lowest data throughput and that negatively impacts overall system performance when swap is accessed.

[Pressurized]

Yes, makes perfect sense

[beaufils]

I also am very grateful for the wonderful work of MouettE.

When reading the post of Pressurized I thought I should have thank MouettE a long time ago.

Thank's to you, MouettE.

[ahoff]

I also am very grateful for the wonderful work of MouettE.
When reading the post of Pressurized I thought I should have thank MouettE a long time ago.

Thank's to you, MouettE.

Agree on that. Thank you.

[MouettE]

Thanks a lot guys

[guyran]

A question to ask how I could correctly repartition my new 2TB drive that I finally managed to use for the installation of your Debian Buster package. I had problems finding the right USB key and it was a Sandisk that finally did the trick; then I had to modify the interfaces to get it to connect properly to the internet. There was the problem of the change of path for the root user to reconfigure the locales & time settings which was mentioned I think by someone else on the forum.
I also read that MouttE suggested moving the swap partition nearer the beginning of the drive if a 3rd partition was created for the /homes. lsblk shows that I have a root partition of 10GB and then a swap of 510MB.
If I took the drive out, mounted it on my Linux desktop and then used gparted to create a 3rd home partition using the rest of the drive would that be a safe operation? As I'm not a Linux expert, I'm always concerned that I'll lock myself out of the B3 as it seems difficult to mount it from a flash drive and then get an ssh connection.
Thanks for all the great work you have done to keep this old Excito product going.

guyran

[jonix]

First of all, thanks to MouettE for his great work with the Debian images!

Has anyone tried upgrading from stretch to buster yet? Any problems?

Hmm, I shouldn't have touched the excellent working Stretch version. If it ain't broken...

I basically only use my WiFi'ed B3 as a print server for an ancient HP Photosmart and running the Logitech Media Server for my three Duets and one Squeezebox radio. Printing from both Windows and various iOS devices worked like a charm and the mediaserver, including among others the Spotty plugin, never failed. And for some strange reason I got the great idea to update sooner rather than later, as I did a year ago when finally wiping the Excito dist.

The apt full-upgrade itself from Stretch worked flawless, but unfortunately it left me a working system without a working printer and a LMS that won't start. I guess it could be fixed quite easy if you play Linux daily, but I don't so I definitely rather consider running a rescue install with Stretch.

If anyone out there sees the obvious, please drop a hint, or I will revert to Stretch in a few days as I miss my music

Thanks,
Johan

[Pressurized]

guyran, it was Gordon who mentioned putting the swap partition close to the start and this was the approach that I used when doing what you appear to be wanting to do. I took the drive out, mounted it in an Ubuntu PC and used 'disks' and 'gparted' to shrink the first partition (ext3, where the OS is) to a minimum, moved the swap partition down next to it then added an ext4 partition filling the rest of the (3TB) disk. My partition table, printed via 'fdisk' is:

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Disk /dev/sda: 2.7 TiB, 3000592982016 bytes, 5860533168 sectors
Disk model: WDC WD30EZRZ-00Z
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: D6AB7D7B-50AB-4F7F-86A2-E5F52DD7924F

Device        Start        End    Sectors  Size Type
/dev/sda1      2048   10002431   10000384  4.8G Linux filesystem
/dev/sda2  10002432   11051007    1048576  512M Linux swap
/dev/sda3  11051008 5860532223 5849481216  2.7T Linux filesystem

I then mounted the new partition to a temporary location so that I could copy across the data in /home to it prior to re-mounting it as /home. This didn't go completely smoothly; I did lose some data in the process. I can't remember how or what, exactly, but it was re-creatable. If you have anything precious, it may be best to back it up onto a memory stick or elsewhere on your network.
This is my 'etc/fstab' file:

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/dev/sda1       /       ext3    noatime         0       1
/dev/sda3       /home   ext4    defaults        0       0

Once you have a working flash drive to re-install buster, my thoughts are that you'll be good using it going forwards.
To locate the b3 on the network, use 'sudo nast -m', the location should then be obvious and you're right that it seems to wander around, probably because my router remembers the previous location and assigns the next IP address.

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Nast V. 0.2.0

Mapping the Lan for 255.255.255.0 subnet ... please wait

MAC address             Ip address (hostname)
===========================================================
50:E5:49:EC:A3:0E       192.168.1.10 (corsair.lan) (*)
B8:27:EB:FB:1A:C9       192.168.1.1 (raspberrypi)
04:92:26:D3:AE:B8       192.168.1.2 (lofty)
00:08:9B:ED:26:50       192.168.1.3 (qnap)
E8:DE:27:03:CF:0C       192.168.1.4 (garage)
B8:27:EB:77:D7:73       192.168.1.5 (dripper)
B8:27:EB:F6:BA:BA       192.168.1.7 (spectrum)
C4:4E:AC:14:ED:AE       192.168.1.8 (vero)
00:22:02:00:41:FD       192.168.1.9 (b3)
F0:6E:0B:8D:10:A3       192.168.1.35 (LEOS-XBOX.lan)
DC:D3:21:55:F5:DF       192.168.1.73 (humax.lan)
A4:08:F5:92:85:02       192.168.1.254 (dsldevice.lan)

(*) This is localhost
                                                   
Finished

[Gordon]

guyran, it was Gordon who mentioned putting the swap partition close to the start...

Correct. I did. Need to note that your system partition seems a bit too tiny. You should take care of logs growing faster than you expect them to do, applications storing data in /var/lib and emails (from cron system) to root. Default partition table I use in Bubbagen for your type disk is as follows:

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/dev/sda1      2048     133119     131072   64M Linux filesystem
/dev/sda2    133120    2230271    2097152    1G Linux swap
/dev/sda3   2230272   44173311   41943040   20G Linux filesystem
/dev/sda4  44173312 5860533134 5803907983  2.7T Linux filesystem

Note: I use some trickery here that puts root (/) on /dev/sda3, so the first partition only contains the boot files.

[Gordon]

The apt full-upgrade itself from Stretch worked flawless, but unfortunately it left me a working system without a working printer and a LMS that won't start. I guess it could be fixed quite easy if you play Linux daily, but I don't so I definitely rather consider running a rescue install with Stretch.

I had a similar issue lately with my old HP2100 laser printer when an update to cups invalidated the defined printer driver. You should be able to fix that through the GUI interface on port 631.

LMS is most likely caused by perl being upgraded and your LMS installation not containing the correct arch dependent modules for the current perl version. You could check out my CPAN binary dist for LMS, but I need to note that this binary is built on Gentoo and it may require a newer glibc installation than is part of Debian 10. I only guarantee this binary dist to work with Bubbagen.