Issue with Foreman Repository '/buster/' - Empty Since 13/06/2024

Problem: Since Thursday, 13/06/2024, the “/buster/” directory in the Foreman repository has been empty, containing only signatures and no available packages. This is impacting our ability to update systems dependent on this repository.

Expected outcome: We expect the “/buster/” directory in the Foreman repository to contain the usual Debian Buster packages and data necessary for system updates.

Foreman and Proxy versions:
Foreman Version 2.3.5

Distribution and version:
Operating System: Debian 10

I am writing to inform you about an issue we are experiencing with the Debian Buster repository managed by Foreman. Since Thursday, 13/06/2024, we have noticed that the directory “/buster/” in the Foreman repository no longer contains any data or available packages. This is affecting our ability to update the systems that rely on these repositories.

Our setup involves several Linux machines using Puppet and Foreman for package management and updates. Until the mentioned date, the machines could access and download necessary packages from the “/buster/” repository without issues. However, we now find ourselves in a situation where this directory appears to have been emptied, leaving only some signatures but no usable content.

We have reviewed our local configuration and confirmed that no significant changes have been made to our access policies or repository configurations. Additionally, we have verified other directories within the “/dists/” structure in the Foreman repository and can confirm that the other directories contain the expected information and packages.

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Hi,

Foreman 2.3 (originally released December 2020, last updated to 2.3.5 June 2021) is end-of-life since the release of Foreman 2.5 (also June 2021). We have recently archived such old releases over to https://archivedeb.theforeman.org (see Archiving Debian/Ubuntu packages for Foreman 3.4 and older for the announcement and https://deb.theforeman.org/ for the pointer to archivedeb).

As such, what you see is totally expected, as we do not have any Foreman releases supported on Debian 10 Buster anymore.

BTW, the Debian LTS support for Buster ends on 2024-06-30, according to LTS - Debian Wiki :wink:

Hello evgeni, thank you very much for your quick response.

May I ask if there is any information on other Linux distributions that do not have support with Foreman 2.3 or 2.5? e.g. Ubuntu 18, CentOS 7.

glancing over the release notes:

  • Ubuntu 18.04 was dropped in 3.1 (so 3.0 is the last release with it)
  • Ubuntu 20.04 was added in 2.5
  • Debian 10 was dropped in 3.4 (so 3.3 was the last release with it)
  • Debian 11 was added in 3.2
  • CentOS 7 was dropped in 3.4 (so 3.3 is the last release with it)

I think the easiest path is to update up to 3.2 on Debian 10 (using archivedeb.theforeman.org), and then switch the machine to Debian 11, and continue the upgrade up to 3.10.

Hello Evgeni,

Perfect, then we will try to migrate to a compatible version as you have mentioned.

Thank you so much!

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