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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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Are configuration management tools (Puppet, Chef) capable of keeping installed packages up to date?

This is probably a simple question for those of you already running configuration management tools. Are configuration management tools such as Puppet or Chef the right approach for keeping installed packages up to date? Suppose I run a number of…
daff
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How to move /var to another existing partition?

I have a / partition which contains /var and is too small. I have another existing partition with enough space. Here is my df: File system Size. Occ. Avai. %Ful. Monté sur /dev/sda1 5,0G 4,5G 289M 95% / tmpfs …
Jérémie
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Cannot delete folder with rm -rf. Error: device or resource busy

I'm trying to delete /var/www/html but I'm getting this error: rm: cannot remove `html': Device or resource busy
Hugo
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NTP is running, system clock still not in time - what gives?

A Debian Stable (5.0.3) server is running ntpd, and connected to the internet. Still, the system clock is about 5 minutes wrong. $ /etc/init.d/ntp status NTP server is running.. Relevant parts (I think) of /etc/ntp.conf: driftfile…
Jonik
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Netstat continuous refresh (watch changes the output)

I am using this simple command to monitor connections (to deal with some recent DoS attacks) on my Debian server: netstat -ntu | awk '{print $5}' | cut -d: -f1 | sort | uniq -c | sort -n How do I run it continuously? So it will refresh itself once…
Ruslan Osipov
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Top-like tool for IP traffic

I need to keep watch on how much bandwidth some connections are taking in a server, and I know I have seen a top-like tool for that before. However, I can't remember the name of the tool, and I'm not having much luck searching for it. So, is there a…
Daniel C. Sobral
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Debian: How to run a script on startup without having to write 30 lines of shell script?

I have a Debian server and I just need to run a script at startup. I read that: https://www.debian-administration.org/article/28/Making_scripts_run_at_boot_time_with_Debian I got now: insserv: warning: script ' missing LSB tags and overrides so it…
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Risk of starting NTP on database server?

I've heard rumors of bad things happening to database and mail servers if you change the system time while they are running. However, I'm having a hard time finding any concrete information on actual risks. I have a production Postgres 9.3 server…
vastlysuperiorman
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How to update a package using puppet and a .deb file

I am trying to figure out the proper way to update/upgrade a deb package using puppet from a local source deb file. My current config looks like this... class adobe-air-2-0-4 { file { "/opt/air-debs": ensure => directory } file {…
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Nginx startup fails ssl no such file or directory

Here is the error I'm getting: Reloading nginx configuration: nginx: [emerg] SSL_CTX_use_certificate_chain_file("/path/to/cert.pem") failed (SSL: error:02001002:system library:fopen:No such file or directory error:20074002:BIO…
tgoza
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How do I change Exim4's primary_hostname on a Debian box?

Some remote SMTP server I am trying to deliver mail to refuses to accept the HELO from my server: 504 5.5.2 : Helo command rejected: need fully-qualified hostname Apparently, my Exim4 server sends localhost as its FQDN. Searching the…
Jørn Schou-Rode
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dpkg: warning: files list file for package 'x' missing

I get this warning for several packages every time I install any package or perform apt-get upgrade. Not sure what is causing it; it's a fresh Debian install on my OpenVZ server and I haven't changed any dpkg settings. Here's an…
Mark
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How do I delete values from the debconf database?

Per this question I've now got wonky preseed values for my gitolite installations such that gitolite fails to install. I need to clear my debconf database of a few keys, but I see no way to accomplish this. Neither did this fellow, as near as I can…
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Should I have to enable automatic update on Debian lenny stable?

I have installed a new Linux Debian lenny server that will be a LAMP and a Subversion server. Should I have to enable automatic updates? If I enable it, I am sure that I have the latest security patches. It also should not break my system since…
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cron: can't lock /var/run/crond.pid, otherpid may be 3759

I had a cron job setup that I cleared using cron -r last night. This morning I tried to enable it again and get this error each time: cron: can't lock /var/run/crond.pid, otherpid may be 3759: Resource temporarily unavailable I have tried rebooting…
Zaid
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