I've updated and I'm still seeing 17.3.9.9 on vbox

Support
1

So that’s a screenshot of what I’m seeing on the VirtualBox dashboard for gateway (I just updated gateway just now)

vbox whonix
vbox whonix960×540 54 KB

So in gateway in Terminal I run

cat /etc/whonix_version

and it just says “17”

So how do I see exactly which version I’m using? I am assuming vbox is showing me the incorrect version cause I’ve updated Gateway so shouldn’t it show 17.4.4.6?

Edit: So I can see that 17.4.4.6 was released back in August, uh, when was 17.4 released? What I’m trying to say is I’ve been updating whonix, both gateway and workstation, about every 2 weeks for months now and on the VirtualBox dashboard I’ve been seeing 17.3.9.9 this whole time.

Also this bug here Failed to start systemd-repart.service - Repartition Root Disk I’m still seeing that bug and you said that bug was fixed by 17.4 so this means my whonix never ever updated to 17.4 so I’m clearly still on 17.3, so what’s going on here?

I mean when did 17.4 even come out?

Man I am so confused right now.

Edit: Ok so from here systemcheck - Security Check Application I got this command to run, I ran this command in gateway in Terminal and as you can see it says 17.3 so yup, I’m still using 17.3 and I literally just updated gateway today. In fact I’ve been updating both gateway and workstation about ever 2 weeks for months now! Is my whonix just totally fucked? Do I need to completely uninstall whonix and reinstall it?

I’m shocked cause I’ve been updating my whonix this whole time, how come it hasn’t updated to 17.4? So I’ve been using a completely broken whonix this whole time, has it compromised my security you think?

[gateway user ~]% systemcheck --verbose --function show_versions
[INFO] [systemcheck] Whonix build version: 17.3.9.9
[INFO] [systemcheck] whonix-gateway-packages-dependencies-cli: 25.1-1
[INFO] [systemcheck] derivative_major_release_version /etc/whonix_version: 17

Edit: So yeah that bug that you said would be fixed by 17.4, well I’ve still got it, here I took a screenshot of it, I just took this screenshot of gateway just now, so this must mean I’m still using 17.3 right?

gateway bug today
gateway bug today1280×800 4.46 KB

2

No, none of that.

The build version is just similar to a date of birth. It doesn’t change. It’s not supposed to change. With that in mind, see again: Build Version

Unfortunately, this is one of the rare cases where old build versions don’t get fixed. But that bug Failed to start systemd-repart.service - Repartition Root Disk is purely cosmetic and can be ignored.

3

Wiki chapter has been improved just now.

4

Wait a second, so you still have not patched this bug?

So I am using the latest version of Whonix which is 17.4?

5

The bug is fixed, but simply updating your system won’t automatically fix it because doing that requires fiddling with partition IDs, which is possibly risky. The partition IDs were supposed to be set properly when the images were built, but due to a mixup, they weren’t. The “error” can be ignored (the only thing it indicates is that if you grow the disk image, you’ll have to manually resize the root partition rather than it being resized for you automatically), or if it bugs you, you can download the latest Whonix 17 image, which have properly set partition IDs. (You can also set the partition IDs manually; how to do this isn’t documented, but the code that does it in Whonix 17’s build system is at derivative-maker/build-steps.d/3200_create-raw-image at da0a9eb6bacedce8f5aa8ea78ba41842a3003cc8 · Whonix/derivative-maker · GitHub)

Yes. As long as you keep your system reliably up-to-date, you’ll be running the same code that is or will be in the latest Whonix 17 images. The build version is, as Patrick said, essentially a “date of birth”; we save it so that if a softwre update needs to make changes to some build versions but not others due to the time at which a bug was introduced, we can target the fix appropriately.

1 Like
6

Ok so to fix it I need to uninstall whonix and reinstall it?

7

That’s the easiest solution for this particular bug, yes.

2 Likes
8

Ok.