Server updates for ARM systems

We have a couple of important announcements relevant to people running the Snikket server software on ARM devices, including Raspberry Pi. Systems using ARM processors are increasingly popular for self-hosting due to their increased efficiency, lower cost and minimal energy consumption.

The Snikket January 2022 server release was an exciting release for us, but some users on ARM-based systems reported some difficulties upgrading to the new version.

Web interface ARM compatibility

Due to a couple of issues with the way our new release was built, the release for certain ARM devices did not include all the necessary components for the web interface to start. If you are affected by this, you may notice the web portal being unavailable on your instance after upgrading. Inspecting the logs may reveal failure to load the module “aiohttp”.

We have fixed our build process, and pushed an updated release. Although the new version is available for all platforms (not only ARM) the only other changes are some translation improvements in the web portal.

To upgrade to the new release, see our upgrade guide.

Compatibility with Debian 10

The second issue we discovered is that users with systems running Debian 10 or Raspbian 10 (“buster”) may encounter an issue where the service fails to start. Inspecting the logs may reveal errors such as “permission denied” or various errors related to “time”.

The container security rules supplied in Debian 10 are out of date. The old rules do not allow access to modern methods of requesting the current time from the system (the current time is necessary for a range of functionality, including verifying certificates are not expired).

Luckily there are a couple of options to fix it. For example, just upgrading your system from Debian/Raspbian 10 to 11 will automatically resolve the issue. Alternatively, if you’d like to avoid upgrading your system right now, a fixed package has been provided by the Debian backports team. We have full details in our troubleshooting guide.

If you have any trouble upgrading on any platform, feel free to stop by our community chat and we’ll be happy to help you out!