Debian Security Advisory DSA-2907-1 security@debian.org http://www.debian.org/security/ Moritz Muehlenhoff April 16, 2014 http://www.debian.org/security/faq - -------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is an advance notice that regular security support for Debian GNU/Linux 6.0 (code name «squeeze») will be terminated on the 31st of May.
However, we're happy to announce that security support for squeeze is going to be extended until February 2016, i.e. five years after the initial release. This effort is driven by various interested parties / companies which require longer security support. See the «LTS» section of https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2014/03/msg00004.html for the initial announcement.
The details are currently being sorted out and a more detailed announcement will be made soon.
Brief advance FAQ (but you should really wait for the more detailed announcement):
Q: What's the difference between regular security support and the LTS support? A: squeeze-lts is only going to support i386 and amd64. If you're running a different architecture you need to upgrade to Debian 7 (wheezy). Also there are going to be a few packages which will not be supported in squeeze-lts (e.g. a few web-based applications which cannot be supported for five years). There will be a tool to detect such unsupported packages.
Q: Does this mean that Debian 7 (wheezy) and/or Debian 8 (jessie) will have five years security support as well? A: Likely, we'll see how squeeze-lts turns out. If there's sufficient support it will be continued for later releases as well. Also, see below.
Q: Is additional help needed? A: Absolutely. squeeze-lts is not handled by the Debian security team, but by a separate group of volunteers and companies interested in making it a success (with some overlap in people involved). So, if you're a company using Debian and seeing a benefit in security support for five years, get in touch with team@security.debian.org and we'll see how you can help (if you e.g. don't have the manpower / know how but are willing to contribute, we can point you to a list of Debian consultants)
