You can help Tails! Incremental upgrades are ready for testing. This feature allows you to upgrade a running Tails without downloading an ISO, without burning a DVD, and without a second USB stick or SD card. Please try it and see if all works for you.

If you have security auditing skills, you are more than welcome to review our design and code.

How to test incremental upgrades?

These instructions allow you to incrementally upgrade from Tails 0.22~rc1 or 0.22~rc2 to Tails 0.22 final.

Keep in mind that this is the first broad call for testing of Tails incremental upgrades. It might have undiscovered issues.

Below, we assume that you have installed Tails 0.22~rc1 with Tails Installer onto a USB stick or SD card.

If you have applied the incremental upgrade to Tails 0.22~rc2, skip to the instructions for RC2 users. Else, read on.

From Tails 0.22~rc1

These steps allow you to incrementally upgrade from Tails 0.22~rc1 to Tails 0.22.

1. Start Tails 0.22~rc1 and set an administration password.

2. Run this command in a Root Terminal to correct the firewall:

   sed -i -e \
      's/tails-iuk-get-target-file/(tails-iuk-get-target-file tails-upgrade-frontend)/' \
      /etc/ferm/ferm.conf && \
   /usr/sbin/ferm /etc/ferm/ferm.conf
   

3. Follow the next steps.

From Tails 0.22~rc1 or 0.22~rc2

1. Choose Applications ▸ Tails ▸ Tails Upgrader to start Tails Upgrader.

2. Accept Tails Upgrader's proposal to upgrade to Tails 0.22.

3. Wait while the upgrade is downloaded and applied.

4. Restart the system when advised to do so.

5. Once the system is restarted, choose System ▸ About Tails to confirm that the running system is now Tails 0.22.

If you find anything that is not working as it should, please report to us! Bonus points if you check that it is not a known issue of incremental upgrades or a longstanding known issue.

Known issues

Known issues of incremental upgrades are tracked in Redmine.