stable vs testing

[madtown]

How about an informal poll out there.

I have a debian server running Woody/Stable at the moment. However, the packages I need are outdated. I am thinking of moving from stable->testing/Sarge.

I am curious if those out there have done this before and how they have faired stability and security wise after the upgrade. Also, any thoughts pro or con on the upgrade?

Cheers,

Madtown

[BlackNet]

Hello,

Consider this. http://www.backports.org they have alot of sid's packages rolled for woody. this means you just add lines like

deb http://www.backports.org/debian/ woody postfix

and game over.

As for doing an actual migration it's fairly easy. just make sure your console doesn't get killed in the process :)

Ed

[bow-wow]

My only advice would be do all or nothing. I tried to upgrade just selected packages to testing and kept the rest of the system at stable and it got to be a big mess. That said, I agree with BlackNet, backports.org is a better option. That is what I'm doing now for updated versions of selected apps and it's working great.

[madtown]

I am using backports now for a few applications. A few packages I need a current version of are not listed though, i.e. curret perl modules for installing Scoop.

I know debian is pretty stable period, as in not crashing. I am under the understanding that Woody/Stable is stable in the sense of the packages do not change, you only get security updates. Any bugs or new features do not make it to Woody. In testing/Sarge, your config files could change through updates, but it is still somewhat stable in the sense it won't be crashing. You might need to change around some config files and upgrade packages now and then, but not as often as unstable. You will get bug fixes though fo some packages. You don't get the security fixes as fast as stable, but you still get them pretty quick... (i.e. quicker than MS updates).

If those assumptions are correct, I do not really see much wrong with using testing on a production server. It will require a little more maintenance, though this is one of my few servers I maintain, so that is not a problem to me.

Am I missing anything or off in my thoughts?

Cheers,

Madtown

[BlackNet]

Hello,

try alot more maintance for SID. Keep in mind the recent modules-init-tools that broke loading modules. Now imagine this headache on a production box. I'd rather go with woody and use a combo like backports, make-kpkg, debuild and the like.

Ed

[madtown]

True, I would never use Unstable/Sid on a production server. Bad, Bad idea.

I am curious about Testing/Sarge on a production box and how it compares to Stable/Woody. More maintenance than Stable/Woody, but not as much as Unstable/Sid.

Sid is not even an option on my horizon.

[knightfoo]

I've used Debian testing and unstable on several production servers with minimal problems. I wouldn't recommend unstable for anyone but the most experienced administrator, but testing is OK as long as you pay attention to security advisories and what you upgrade.

When it comes to security, Debian stable gets priority attention from the Debian developers. Testing/unstable avoids *most* of the security exploits simply due to the fact that it uses more recent versions of the applications. If there is an exploit for a Debian testing package it is normally fixed pretty quickly, though you will rarely see turn around times as quick as stable package fixes.

You should always have a non-production test server that you can install the upgraded packages on before installing them on your production server. Actually, this goes for any system: stable, testing, or otherwise. Doing a live upgrade on a production system without testing the upgrade first is just a bad idea.

-knightfoo