Whonix Gateway release upgrade to version 16 failed

Hi,

I’m running the Whonix Gateway and Workstation 15 in VirtualBox 6.1.26 on a single Windows host and I’m trying to perform the release upgrade from version 15 to version 16 according to the official Whonix documentation: Release Upgrade Whonix 15 to Whonix 16 - Whonix.

I was able to successfully upgrade the Whonix Workstation but I get the following error during the Whonix Gateway upgrade which seems to be related to the VirtualBox guest additions:

❯ sudo release-upgrade
...
Setting up linux-headers-5.10.0-9-amd64 (5.10.70-1) ...
/etc/kernel/header_postinst.d/dkms:
Error! Bad return status for module build on kernel: 5.10.0-9-amd64 (x86_64)
Consult /var/lib/dkms/virtualbox-guest/6.1.6/build/make.log for more information.
...
Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have
requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable
distribution that some required packages have not yet been created
or been moved out of Incoming.
The following information may help to resolve the situation:

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
 sdwdate : Depends: helper-scripts but it is not going to be installed
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.
+ true 'ERROR: An error was encountered during download of dependency packages. Recommendation:
Fix network connection and retry.'
+ exit 1

The log file mentioned in the error message above shows the following content:

❯ cat /var/lib/dkms/virtualbox-guest/6.1.6/build/make.log
DKMS make.log for virtualbox-guest-6.1.6 for kernel 5.10.0-9-amd64 (x86_64)
Sun 17 Oct 2021 12:19:40 PM UTC
make: Entering directory '/usr/src/linux-headers-5.10.0-9-amd64'
  CC [M]  /var/lib/dkms/virtualbox-guest/6.1.6/build/vboxguest/VBoxGuest-linux.o
  CC [M]  /var/lib/dkms/virtualbox-guest/6.1.6/build/vboxguest/VBoxGuest.o
  CC [M]  /var/lib/dkms/virtualbox-guest/6.1.6/build/vboxguest/combined-agnostic.o
  CC [M]  /var/lib/dkms/virtualbox-guest/6.1.6/build/vboxguest/common/string/strformatrt.o
In file included from /var/lib/dkms/virtualbox-guest/6.1.6/build/vboxguest/VBoxGuest-linux.c:36:
/var/lib/dkms/virtualbox-guest/6.1.6/build/vboxguest/r0drv/linux/the-linux-kernel.h:141:11: fatal error: linux/smp_lock.h: No such file or directory
  141 | # include <linux/smp_lock.h>
      |           ^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
compilation terminated.
make[3]: *** [/usr/src/linux-headers-5.10.0-9-common/scripts/Makefile.build:285: /var/lib/dkms/virtualbox-guest/6.1.6/build/vboxguest/VBoxGuest-linux.o] Error 1
make[3]: *** Waiting for unfinished jobs....
make[2]: *** [/usr/src/linux-headers-5.10.0-9-common/scripts/Makefile.build:502: /var/lib/dkms/virtualbox-guest/6.1.6/build/vboxguest] Error 2
make[1]: *** [/usr/src/linux-headers-5.10.0-9-common/Makefile:1846: /var/lib/dkms/virtualbox-guest/6.1.6/build] Error 2
make: *** [/usr/src/linux-headers-5.10.0-9-common/Makefile:185: __sub-make] Error 2
make: Leaving directory '/usr/src/linux-headers-5.10.0-9-amd64'

Virtualbox should support up to kernel version 5.13 (Changelog – Oracle VM VirtualBox):
Linux host and guest: Support kernel version 5.13 (bug #20456)

And as mentioned previously, the Whonix Workstation upgrade was successful. The Workstation shows the same kernel version for which I get an error during the Gateway upgrade:

❯ uname -srm
Linux 5.10.0-9-amd64 x86_64

BR

Too complicated to debug/fix. Unlikely anyone would know/help.

Suggest to get a new gateway according to factory reset, re-installation method:

I see, thanks for the input.