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I installed some time ago phpMyAdmin on my Debian 7 server via apt-get install phpmyadmin and the version which has been installed was "3.4.11.1deb2". Current the latest version is 4.1.12 (I looked for that on the phpMyAdmin website).

My problem is, when I run the command apt-get update and apt-get upgrade it should normally update all installed packages but it doesn't update phpMyAdmin to the latest version. Do I have to do that manually and if yes, how do I to do that?

halfer
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blubb
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  • Maybe this link can help you: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/9812330/upgrading-phpmyadmin-and-other-packages-on-debian-squeeze – Bayway Apr 02 '14 at 14:51

2 Answers2

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No, it behaves as expected.

Any release of Debian comes with the software versions that were considered "stable" at the time of the Debian release. Actually a "bit" earlier, as Debian goes to great lengths to make sure that the software in the release really is stable and that it plays together nicely with all other packages in that release (and there are quite a lot of packages too: iirc, Debian 7 comes with almost 50000 different software packages!).

Debian 7 (codename "wheezy") has been released on May 4th, 2013. At that time, there probably was no phpmyadmin-4.x available anywhere (not even on the harddisks of the phpmyadmin-developers). That's why Debian 7 comes with phpmyadmin-3.4.11.1.

Sometimes packages get updated after a Debian release. This is only to fix severe security problems, and never to just get a new "hot and fresh" version of a given package. Whenever you do an aptitude update && aptitude upgrade, you will only upgrade packages in your chosen Debian release (automatically upgrading to a new release might involve downloading thousands of packages and surprise you with a completely new system the next time you look at it).

There's an online interface where you can check which version of a given package is in which (currently supported) Debian release.

So in order to get an up-to-date version of a given package you have the following options:

  • check whether somebody has backported a recent version of your favourite package to the Debian release you are using.

  • upgrade your Debian to a version that supports it

  • download/build the package yourself (preferably creating a proper Debian package, which you can share with other people)

halfer
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umläute
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    This is very comprehensive, but to add to it phpMyAdmin is very easy to install yourself; first check the requirements at http://docs.phpmyadmin.net/en/latest/require.html then refer to the installation instructions at http://docs.phpmyadmin.net/en/latest/setup.html -- it's basically as easy as downloading the source file and uncompressing it to your web root, plus you get the most recent version that way. You'll have to handle updates manually, but the developers have tried to make that as easy as possible. – Isaac Bennetch Apr 03 '14 at 14:23
  • Hi there @umläute. Can I ask you to refrain from making all-lower-case posts? The community puts a fair bit of emphasis on readability, which requires reasonable attention to grammar, punctuation, case and spelling (with appropriate leeway for people with poor English, of course). [More on that here](http://meta.stackexchange.com/a/165505). – halfer May 31 '14 at 19:45
  • @IsaacBennetch That issue of handling updates manually is not a minor one. It's well worth finding a maintained repository if you can. – mc0e Feb 13 '17 at 07:21
  • There is also the option of running phpMyAdmin in Docker, using a Container OS version that comes with a more up to date version of phpMyAdmin, although if Docker is not part of your current way of working, it is unlikely to simplify the issues with keeping software up to date. – mc0e Feb 13 '17 at 07:24
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You can leverage the Jessie repository to upgrade certain Wheezy packages, but all the usual admonitions apply. Testing this on a backup machine is a really good idea,

Copy /etc/apt/sources.list > /etc/apt/sources.list.wheezy

Edit the /etc/apt/sources.list file:

gedit /etc/apt/sources.list

and replace the contents of /etc/apt/sources.list with the following lines:

deb h.t.t.p://ftp.de.debian.org/debian/ jessie main contrib non-free

deb-src h.t.t.p://ftp.de.debian.org/debian/ jessie main contrib non-free


deb h.t.t.p://httpredir.debian.org/debian jessie-updates main contrib non-free

deb-src h.t.t.p://httpredir.debian.org/debian jessie-updates main contrib non-free


deb h.t.t.p://security.debian.org/ jessie/updates main contrib non-free
deb-src h.t.t.p://security.debian.org/ jessie/updates main contrib non-free

(Change h.t.t.p > http. You can replace "de" with e.g. "us" or your country code, but it should make no difference).

Save the file and run the following command to update the sources database:

apt-get update

DO NOT RUN apt-get upgrade!

Next,

apt-get install phpmyadmin

choose your options. I didn't modify my config but did upgrade the database.

Then, just to be safe, I ran

php5enmod mcrypt

service php5-fpm restart

IMPORTANT!!! Change your repository back to wheezy!

Rename /etc/apt/sources.list to /etc/apt/sources.list.jessie

Rename /etc/apt/sources.list.wheezy to /etc/apt/sources.list

Run

apt-get update

You should be back on the Wheezy repositories.

That should do it.

Zulu
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drakejones
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  • It would be better to use package pinning for this, as you could receive updates this way. Changing the repository list back and forth is not neccessary – Nico Haase Apr 23 '16 at 17:13