Steps to do to avoid any issues while updating Ubuntu distro on WSL, windows 10

updating-ubuntu-wsl.md

Sometimes Ubuntu fails to install some services which probably can be fixed by updating the Ubuntu distro, which was my case.

My case was aws-vault was throwing strange errors. Updating Ubuntu fixed it.

Here are the steps I did to make the Ubuntu update go smooth.

Note: Make sure you are running it as a non-root user

Note: $PATH resets when the terminal is reopened. To avoid this, register the $PATH changes in ~/.bashrc file. As mentioned here: stackoverflow. Example: echo 'export PATH=$PATH: /path/to/bin' >> ~/.bashrc or add export PATH=$PATH: /path/to/bin at the end of the .bashrc by opening it in a editor, sudo vi ~/.bashrc.

Update the jessie services in /etc/apt/sources.list (sudo vi /etc/apt/sources.list) to the following:

deb http://deb.debian.org/debian bullseye main contrib
deb-src http://deb.debian.org/debian bullseye main contrib

deb http://deb.debian.org/debian-security/ bullseye-security main contrib
deb-src http://deb.debian.org/debian-security/ bullseye-security main contrib

deb http://deb.debian.org/debian bullseye-updates main contrib
deb-src http://deb.debian.org/debian bullseye-updates main contrib

Run the command:

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade

It might complain some service keys are invalid or expired while running the above update command. In such cases, it is better to run those following invalid/expired keys with this command:

sudo apt-key adv --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys {key1} {key2} {key3}

The key1, key2, key3 are 16 digit invalid/expired keys. These keys can be one or many.

If this too doesn't work, I am not sure but try checking the invalid/expired keys for each package by running this command: sudo apt-key list. Usually, the key will be last 16 digit key in each package, for example:

pub   rsa4096 2013-08-17 [SC] [expired: 2021-08-15]
      75DD C3C4 A499 F1A1 8CB5  F3C8 CBF8 D6FD 518E 17E1  // These last 16 digits i.e CBF8D6FD518E17E1 (spaces removed)
uid           [ expired] Jessie Stable Release Key <debian-release@lists.debian.org>

Sometimes these keys are invalid/expired from the provider itself as happened with Google before.