Upgrading From Debian 11 To Debian 12

Debian 12 (Bookworm) has just been released! This release includes a jump to Linux kernel version 6.1, which brings experimental support for Rust in the kernel, improved ARM SoC support, support for Intel Meteor Lake, and more.

⬆️ Updating

Should you be a seasoned Debian user, you're likely acquainted with the routine procedures involved in a distro upgrade. This typically involves verifying package compatibility, updating your apt sources, and more. A comprehensive rundown of these steps can be found via this link. Prior to initiating an upgrade, it's crucial to ensure at least a snapshot of your VM has been taken, if not a complete backup!

🆕 Visible changes in XCP-ng

There are a couple changes in Debian 12 that are specific to being virtualized under Xen. The main difference is Ethernet interfaces in Debian under Xen are now named with a prefix of enX, instead of eth.

So, for example, your interface that was previously eth0 will now be named enX0. Be sure to take this into account in any configurations, scripts, or deployment tools like cloud-init or terraform which involve interface names!

Lastly, to report IP addresses on interfaces and other details correctly in XOA and other xen management utilities, you need to be sure to upgrade the guest tools installed in your VM to 7.30.0-11 or higher. Note that the numbering scheme was changed in the past from 8.x, so if you have tools with a version of 8.x, they are actually quite old and need upgrading.

That's all!