Re: expiration of jessie-backports Release files
On Wed, 03 Apr 2019, Vincent.Mcintyre@csiro.au wrote:
> On Wed, Apr 03, 2019 at 07:45:22AM +0200, Alexander Wirt wrote:
> > On Wed, 03 Apr 2019, Vincent.Mcintyre@csiro.au wrote:
> >
> > > Hi,
> > >
> > > this seems to be a new issue with the Jessie release.
> > >
> > > The issue:
> > >
> > > - in the Release file on archive.d.o [1] we have
> > > Codename: jessie-backports
> > > Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2019 20:25:43 UTC
> > > Valid-Until: Tue, 19 Feb 2019 20:25:43 UTC
> > > NotAutomatic: yes
> > >
> > > - in the Release file for wheezy-backports [2] we have
> > > Codename: wheezy-backports
> > > Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2018 08:51:34 UTC
> > > NotAutomatic: yes
> > >
> > > which causes apt to rightly complain that the Release file is out
> > > of date and refuse to use the package source.
> > >
> > > However it would be useful to me to be able to access packages from
> > > that suite from time to time as we phase out our jessie machines.
> > >
> > > Are there any plans to remove the Valid-Until lines from the
> > > archive.d.o copy of the Release and InRelease files and re-sign them?
> >
> > No, thats the way its supposed to work, valid-until was added to indicate
> > that a release is out of support. Valid-until support in apt was added after
> > wheezy support, therefore it isn't a suprise that wheezy doesn't have that
> > header.
> >
>
> Sure, I understand that.
>
> But consider the context these Release files are in now - an archive
> which won't be updated into the future. The packages are there,
> still available if necessary, but it should be clear to anyone using
> it that the packages are no longer supported.
>
> This isn't really a problem for the backports team per se, I raised
> it here because I noticed it in the context of the backports.
> But now I am wondering if this will apply to other jessie components
> that will eventually end up only available from archive.d.o.
See the discussion on the debian-devel mailinglist. We did the same with
jessie updates, which already was detected as a problem and will probably
get reverted and replaced by an empty repo.
> Perhaps I should raise it with the team that manages archive.d.o ?
> I'm not sure what the right channel is to do that - can you suggest
> who to contact?
That should be ftpmaster@debian.org.
>
> The motivation for raising this is that if I have to refresh the files
> in /var/lib/apt/lists on a machine which has jessie-backports as one
> of its package sources, the only way to make this work is:
>
> apt -o Acquire::Check-Valid-Until=false update
>
> Which turns off the validation for all package sources, no?
> It's fine for a one-off invocation, but not so fine generally.
You can add that per repo:
deb [check-valid-until=no] http://whateveritisonarchive jessie-backports main contrib non-fre
> If the copies of the Release files on archive.d.o had the Valid-Until
> line removed, exactly because they are never going to be updated again,
> this would avoid the issue. At least that is my understanding.
Afaik, the feature just didn't existed by that time. But I don't maintain
archive so I am not 100% sure.
> One could also put this issue in another way - if the Release file
> says "all these packages are out of date, don't install them" is
> there any reason for them to exist on archive.d.o at all?
Archive.d.o is there for historical reasons. It is NOT for daily usage.
Alex
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