Debian 8 Jessie EOL 30th June 2020

On the 30th June 2020, Debian 8 “Jessie” goes End of Life (EOL). We recommend you upgrade to Debian 10 “Buster” (skipping Debian 9 if possible).

Debian 8 was one of a few OS’s that supported PHP 5, even after official support by the PHP developers ended in 2018. Debian 10 supports PHP 7.3, which may require  some rewriting of code for your website or application, so it best to start planning your upgrade now!

Technology and security evolves. New bugs are fixed and new threats prevented, so in order to maintain a secure infrastructure it is important to keep all software and systems up to date.  Once an operating system reaches end of life, it no longer receives updates, so will end up left with known security holes. Old operating systems don’t support the latest technologies, which new releases of software depend on, this can lead to compatibility issues.

Leaving old Debian 8 systems past June 2020 leaves you at risk to:

• Security vulnerabilities of the out of date system.
• Making your entire network more vulnerable.
• Software incompatibility.
• Compliance issues (PCI).
• Poor performance and reliability.

Debian End of life dates:

• Debian 9 “Stretch”: June 2022.
• Debian 10: “Buster”:  No date given as yet –  based on previous releases our best guess is 2024.

Increased Speed:

By moving from Debian 8 to Debian 10 you should notice a speed increase due to the newer software.

• Apache 2.4.10 -> Apache 2.4.38
• PHP 5.x -> PHP 7.3
• MySQL 5.6 / 5.7 -> MariaDB 10.3

Not sure where to start? Contact us to help with your migration.

Feature image by Loren Javier licensed by CC by 2.0