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Debian

Package management, updates, release upgrades, and firewall setup on a Debian VPS.

Our Debian image is the official Debian generic cloud image, provisioned with cloud-init. For help deciding whether Debian is right for you, see Choosing a Linux distribution.

What’s in the image

  • Packages: a minimal Debian install with apt, OpenSSH, and cloud-init.
  • Networking: configured by cloud-init at boot. See VPS networking for how your addresses are assigned.
  • Firewall: the cloud image doesn’t ship with an active firewall. See Set up a firewall.

To check which Debian release you’re running:

Shell
cat /etc/debian_version

Install packages

Debian uses apt to install packages. Refresh the package lists first, then install:

Shell
sudo apt update
sudo apt install htop

To search for a package:

Shell
apt search htop

Update your system

To install the latest updates:

Shell
sudo apt update
sudo apt full-upgrade

Reboot if the update installed a new kernel.

Automatic updates

Debian can install security updates automatically with unattended-upgrades:

Shell
sudo apt install unattended-upgrades
sudo dpkg-reconfigure -plow unattended-upgrades

Answer Yes when asked whether to automatically download and install stable updates.

Upgrade to a new Debian release

A new Debian release comes out about every two years. Each release gets about three years of security support from Debian, followed by two more years of Debian LTS.

To upgrade, follow the upgrade chapter of the new release’s release notes. The process is roughly:

  1. Fully update your current release and take a backup.
  2. Replace the old release’s codename with the new one in your APT sources, under /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ or in /etc/apt/sources.list.
  3. Run sudo apt update, then sudo apt upgrade --without-new-pkgs, then sudo apt full-upgrade.
  4. Reboot.

Only upgrade one release at a time.

Set up a firewall

Our hardening guide walks through setting up UFW on Debian.

Next steps