Crossgrading a more typical server in Debian9

First you need to install a 64bits kernel and boot with it. See my previous post on how to do it.

Second you need to do a bootstrap of crossgrading:

 apt-get clean
 apt-get upgrade
 apt-get --download-only install dpkg:amd64 tar:amd64 apt:amd64 bash:amd64 dash:amd64 init:amd64 mawk:amd64
 dpkg --install /var/cache/apt/archives/*_amd64.deb
 dpkg --install /var/cache/apt/archives/*_amd64.deb
 dpkg --print-architecture
 dpkg --print-foreign-architectures

Third, do a crossgrade of the libraries:

 dpkg --list > original.dpkg
 apt-get --fix-broken --allow-remove-essential install
 for pack32 in $(grep :i386 original.dpkg | awk '{print $2}' ) ; do 
   if dpkg --status $pack32 | grep -q "Multi-Arch: same" ; then 
     apt-get install --yes --allow-remove-essential ${pack32%:i386} ; 
   fi ; 
 done

Forth, do a full crossgrade:

 if ! apt-get install --allow-remove-essential $(grep :i386 original.dpkg | awk '{print $2}' | sed -e s/:i386//) ; then
   apt-get --fix-broken --allow-remove-essential install
   apt-get install --allow-remove-essential $(grep :i386 original.dpkg | awk '{print $2}' | sed -e s/:i386//)
 fi