Upgrading to Debian 10 “buster” (complete)
We’re upgrading our servers from Debian Linux version 9 (codename “stretch”) to version 10 (codename “buster”). We’ll be finishing that process over the next couple of weeks.
Your website and email should continue working as they always have, and we don’t expect any downtime. However, if you do have any trouble, don’t hesitate to contact us.
Although the final steps of the upgrade modify hundreds of software packages on the server, we’ve tested it extensively and don’t expect most customers to notice any change. (We’ve already been using the newer version of Debian for our own servers.)
What are the major changes?
Technically advanced users may be interested in the major changes in this update, which are:
- Sites we host will support TLS 1.3, making them load slightly faster
- Python 3.5 will be updated to Python 3.7
- Perl 5.24 will be updated to Perl 5.28
However, many of the other changes that users familiar with Debian might expect have already happened over the last year. For example, we already use the latest “buster” versions of PHP, the Apache web server, MySQL/MariaDB, and the Dovecot POP/IMAP mail server. (Updating major packages one by one reduces the impact of making many changes at once.) This final step is simply updating all the minor packages that are left after updating the major packages.
Update March 9, 2021: The upgrades described above have been completed for all servers.
