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Questions tagged [debian]

Debian is a popular and influential GNU/Linux distribution. Questions here should generally be about Debian Server.

Debian GNU/Linux its one of the oldest and more popular Linux distributions. The Debian project was started in 1993 by Ian Murdock (the name Debian is a junction of Debra + Ian, his girlfriend at the time). Debian strongest points are the portability, stability and commitment to the free software ideal.

The current Debian version (6.0, code named Squeeze) has more than 29.000 software packages available on nine platforms (including SPARC, ARM, PowerPC), and 2 platforms supporting the FreeBSD kernel (Debian GNU/kfreebsd on i386 and amd64). The Debian APT package management provides dependency management and strong update and upgrade capabilities.

Debian maintains normally 3 versions of its repositories: stable (the current release), testing (the next release), unstable (new packages and versions). After debian makes a new release, the previous stable release is maintained for one year, and is re-labed oldstable. Squeeze also included the backports repository where some software from the testing will be made available to the stable release, and updates (previously named volatile) to deal with software that evolves too fast. Debian also makes point releases with aggregated updates and updated tools, those keep the release name but update the version like Debian 6.1 for example.

Debian has a Social Contract with its users and will only distribute on its main distribution software that is compatible with the Debian Free Software Guidelines.Those two devices were created on the early days of the distribution and also are the basis for Open Source Initiative's Open Source Definition.

The Debian project organization counts with the Debian Project Leader, the Debian Project Secretary and the Debian Developers. The developers are responsible for the releases, packaging software, managing the FTPs, security and so on. Each Project Leader is elected for a period of one year and any Developer can be a candidate.

Ubuntu Linux uses Debian as its base, as well as other well known distributions like Maemo, Mint, Knoppix and several others. The Wikipedia article has also more details about the distribution, as well as Debian's official site.

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How can I know if reboot is required after update?

I have 4 servers with Debian Wheezy OS. I have Apticron installed that informs me about updates. Debian updates are realized so often that when I finish to update the last of 4 servers I get new email about new updates on the first server. I try to…
user1406271
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Why does the $PATH of an ssh remote command differ from that of an interactive shell?

I have a user that has made no modifications to the $PATH in any dot-files: it is exactly the system default setting. From a login shell: $ ssh example.com user@example.com:~$ cat /tmp/hello.hs #!/bin/bash echo "$SHELL" echo…
troutwine
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How to stop ping output?

I run ping command in console and it now outputs hundreds of those rows now (icmp_seq=526 ttl=64 time=0.026 ms), icmp_seq is like 500 or more now. How to stop it? (linux debian) Should i just close console? Never mind, it stopped on 532.…
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Confused about alias_maps and virtual_alias_maps

I have already re-read the docs on this as well as other posts here and this is still very unclear to me. I have been testing various things to understand the difference between alias_maps and virtual_alias_maps and I don't see the use of these 2…
Neel
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Why do ICMP Redirect Host happen?

I'm setting up a Debian box as a router for 4 subnets. For that I have defined 4 virtual interfaces on the NIC where the LAN is connected (eth1). eth1 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 94:0c:6d:82:0d:98 inet addr:10.1.1.1 …
El Barto
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How set PATH for all users in Debian?

I have a Debian Lenny server, and I would like the www-data user to have /usr/local/zend/bin in its PATH, so it can execute a script in cron as www-data. How do I add /usr/local/zend/bin to PATH, so www-data can execuate files in /usr/local/zend/bin…
Sandra
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Linux/Debian - What does 'pee' in moreutils do?

I recently discovered the 'moreutils' package in Debian (and Ubuntu). It's a collection of convenient unix tools. One of the commands is 'pee'. The man page says: pee is like tee but for pipes. However it's a short man page, I have filed a bug…
Amandasaurus
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How to set the domain name on GNU/Linux?

Similarly to hostname that can be changed in different ways: temporarily using the hostname command permanently using /etc/hostname (or /etc/sysconfig/network or /etc/HOSTNAME, these files are used by the init scripts) I want to change my domain…
Mildred
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How to get a list of security updates on the command line in Debian/Ubuntu

In the GUI tool you can get a list packages with security updates. Can this be done on the command line in Debian or Ubuntu? Normally I might use "apt-get upgrade" which would show me what is being upgraded, but I would like to know which ones are…
Stephen Paulger
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Can't start/stop mysql service

Taking over a Debian Etch web server with MySQL running. I usually start, stop and restart msyql using: /etc/init.d/mysql restart For some reason on this set up I get the following: :~# /etc/init.d/mysql stop Stopping MySQL database server:…
Derek Organ
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Cannot install openjdk-8-jre-headless on Debian Jessie

This Friday I saw that I had 2 held back packages for some reason when I ran apt-get upgrade, so naturally I did what any inexperienced sysadmin would do and uninstalled the packages in the hopes that I could simply re-install them and the problem…
SeinopSys
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ZFS endless resilvering

I have a large (> 100TB) ZFS (FUSE) pool on Debian that lost two drives. As the drives failed, I replaced them with spares until I could schedule an outage and physically replace the bad disks. When I took the system down and replaced the drives,…
jasongullickson
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Why does Debian clean php sessions with a cron job instead of using php's built-in garbage collector?

Debian and derivatives (Ubuntu) don't use the php session garbage collector session.gc_probability = 0 instead they use a cron /etc/cron.d/php5 09,39 * * * * root [ -x /usr/lib/php5/maxlifetime ] && [ -d /var/lib/php5 ] && find /var/lib/php5/…
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How to prevent ntpd to listen on 0.0.0.0:123?

ntpd listens on numerous interfaces by default, I only want it to listen on 127.0.0.1:123 since I only want the localhost to sync the time. How to do that, I tried by editing /etc/default/ntp on Debian Wheezy: NTPD_OPTS='-4 -I 127.0.0.1' But it…
JohnnyFromBF
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Prevent mail being marked as spam

This is a canonical question about avoiding outgoing mail being classified as spam. Also related: Fighting Spam - What can I do as an: Email Administrator, Domain Owner, or User? What are SPF records, and how do I configure them? I'm…
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