Template repository status after an in-place system upgrade?

[vr2024]

Having performed an in-place system upgrade, I’m now trying to migrate my Whonix installation to version 18.

Listing the installed templates I noticed that all of them are still referring to 4.2 repositories:

    [vr@dom0 ~]$ 
    [vr@dom0 ~]$ qvm-template list
    Installed Templates
    debian-13              0:4.2.0-202508191510  qubes-templates-itl
    debian-13-minimal      0:4.2.0-202508191510  qubes-templates-itl
    debian-13-xfce         0:4.2.0-202508191510  qubes-templates-itl
    fedora-42              0:4.2.0-202506082132  qubes-templates-itl
    fedora-42-minimal      0:4.2.0-202506090022  qubes-templates-itl
    whonix-gateway-17      0:4.0.6-202402022331  qubes-templates-community
    whonix-workstation-17  0:4.0.6-202402022119  qubes-templates-community
    Available Templates
    debian-12-minimal  0:4.3.0-202507031439  qubes-templates-itl
    debian-12-xfce     0:4.3.0-202503100307  qubes-templates-itl
    debian-12          0:4.3.0-202507031439  qubes-templates-itl
    debian-13-minimal  0:4.3.0-202510232142  qubes-templates-itl
    debian-13-xfce     0:4.3.0-202512040043  qubes-templates-itl
    debian-13          0:4.3.0-202510232142  qubes-templates-itl
    fedora-42-minimal  0:4.3.0-202510232219  qubes-templates-itl
    fedora-42-xfce     0:4.3.0-202512040155  qubes-templates-itl
    fedora-42          0:4.3.0-202510240005  qubes-templates-itl
    [vr@dom0 ~]$

I have the following questions:

• Q1: Is it save to call the qubes-dist-upgrade tool another time, using just the ‘–template-standalone-upgrade’ option ?
• Q2: Are the logs of my previous in-place upgrade still available in dom0, so that I can investigate why the switch did not occur / succeed ?

[vr2024]

@vr2024

I have the following questions:

• Q1: Is it save to call the qubes-dist-upgrade tool another time, using just the ‘–template-standalone-upgrade’ option ?
• Q2: Are the logs of my previous in-place upgrade still available in dom0, so that I can investigate why the switch did not occur / succeed ?

Does anyone have a feedback to Q1 or Q2 ?

[NewRoot]

@vr2024

Does anyone have a feedback to Q1 or Q2 ?

The answer to both Q1 and Q2 is Yes.
You should be able to find the log at /var/log/qubes-dist-upgrade.log
I was able to find all my attempts to upgrade qubes including the 3 times I ran

sudo qubes-dist-upgrade --releasever=4.3 --template-standalone-upgrade

The results indicated that the upgrade eventually worked in some fashion.

----> Skipping update of whonix-gateway-17, already updated to 4.3
----> Skipping update of whonix-workstation-17, already updated to 4.3

I managed to install whonix-gateway-18 and whonix-workstation-18 following the instructions on https://www.whonix.org/wiki/Qubes/Install with the following 2 commands. The first downloads the whonix-18 templates and the second uses the salt instructions to safely setup the whonix app qubes.

qvm-template install --enablerepo=qubes-templates-community whonix-gateway-18 whonix-workstation-18 
sudo qubesctl state.sls qvm.anon-whonix 

Afterwards I was able to remove the whonix-17 templates and app qubes.

My problem was that I was not setup to download from the qubes-templates-community repos. The results of my running of qvm-template list gave

Installed Templates
whonix-gateway-17      0:4.2.0-202403121556  @commandline
whonix-workstation-17  0:4.2.0-202403121556  @commandline
Available Templates
debian-12-minimal  0:4.3.0-202512180242  qubes-templates-itl
debian-12-xfce     0:4.3.0-202512180024  qubes-templates-itl
debian-12          0:4.3.0-202512180024  qubes-templates-itl
debian-13-minimal  0:4.3.0-202510232142  qubes-templates-itl
debian-13-xfce     0:4.3.0-202512040043  qubes-templates-itl
debian-13          0:4.3.0-202512180242  qubes-templates-itl
fedora-42-minimal  0:4.3.0-202512180024  qubes-templates-itl
fedora-42-xfce     0:4.3.0-202512040155  qubes-templates-itl
fedora-42          0:4.3.0-202512180242  qubes-templates-itl
fedora-43-minimal  0:4.3.0-202601041226  qubes-templates-itl
fedora-43-xfce     0:4.3.0-202601041226  qubes-templates-itl
fedora-43          0:4.3.0-202601041226  qubes-templates-itl

You clearly downloaded whonix-17 from the qubes-templates-community repos.

[vr2024]

@NewRoot

@vr2024

Does anyone have a feedback to Q1 or Q2 ?

The answer to both Q1 and Q2 is Yes.
You should be able to find the log at /var/log/qubes-dist-upgrade.log

For whatever reason this log does not exist (anymore) on my system.

Since I did not receive feedback for quite some time I simply went ahead & installed Whonix 18 in parallel - and - deleted the Whonix 17 templates afterwards.

Nevertheless thanks a lot for your feedback !