Technical details for SecureDrop's Noble migration

Originally posted on securedrop.org

Since its first version, SecureDrop has run on the Ubuntu Server operating system. Ubuntu provides security fixes and updates for each long-term support release for five years; SecureDrop currently uses Ubuntu 20.04 “Focal.” As of May 2025, that version will no longer be supported, so all servers must migrate to Ubuntu 24.04 “Noble,” which will be supported until May 2029.

Historically this upgrade has involved taking a backup of your SecureDrop, reinstalling the servers using the newer Ubuntu version, reinstalling SecureDrop itself, and then restoring the backup. From a development perspective, this was reliable, as it reused the same robust logic as with routine OS upgrades.

However, this put the burden on SecureDrop administrators to go through a manual process. For this round of upgrades, we wanted to see if we could spare administrators the extra work and automate the upgrade process.

Read the full post on the SecureDrop blog.