Server Patching Notes

Previously: Server Setup Notes: Ubuntu, Nginx, Django, MySQL I spent some time last week trying to patch and update my rinky-dink little webserver over here. This was mostly because of the PHP-related vulnerabilities that kind of ran roughshod over the cybersecurity sector last week. For a more detailed discussion of that incident, I found this post useful. Anyway! I took some notes because I suspect in our current GenAI-powered dystopia this will not be the last such incident so I should get used to patching my server. Patching PHP Now, my server uses some PHP but not a lot. There was an odd Wordpress instance on a subdomain, and small one-off pages I use for various tasks. I disabled the whole lot of them (or at least tried to, I didn't actually get them all) while I tried to figure out how to do the upgrade. My server was on something like PHP 8.3.x, where x < the "safe" patched version number. But for some reason I found that even when I tried to do the instructed sudo apt update…