Bug#396210: apt: Problem with Default-Release option
Package: apt
Version: 0.6.43.3
Severity: normal
*** Please type your report below this line ***
The APT::Default-Release statement doesn't correctly handle cases where you
have 2 different mirrors from that release in sources.list (eg, 1 old mirror,
and 1 newer, but incomplete mirror), they have different versions of packages,
and you currently have one of the older versions installed but you want to
upgrade to a newer version (available in one of the other mirrors).
eg:
1) You have a line like this in your apt.conf file:
APT::Default-Release "testing";
2) You provide 2 "testing" mirrors in sources.list, eg:
deb http://old.mirror/debian testing main contrib non-free
deb http://updates.mirror/debian testing main contrib non-free
-> old.mirror is an older but complete mirror
-> updates.mirror is an incomplete mirror, containing only some
newer versions needed that aren't in old.mirror
3) You currently have packages installed which match the latest versions
available from old.mirror.
Then, you are unable to upgrade those packages to newer versions found in
updates.mirror. apt-get says that the versions installed are already the
latest.
In this case you have to do one of the following:
1) Explicitely force the version to install (apt-get install
<package>=<version>). This doesn't work very well when there are other
dependencies that should be upgraded (you have to explicitely state new
versions for them also, otherwise apt-get complains that a new version is
needed, but the older (ie, currently-installed) version is going to be installed)
or
2) Remove the APT::Default-Release "testing" line from apt.conf, and comment
out/remove lines for other releases from your sources.list.
It looks like apt-get is assigning a very high priority to currently installed
versions of packages, if their version matches the newest version in any
mirror found in sources.list (when those sources.list lines match the
Default-Release option). Or for some reason electing to ignore other package
versions which are also from that release.
-- Package-specific info:
-- apt-config dump --
APT "";
APT::Architecture "i386";
APT::Build-Essential "";
APT::Build-Essential:: "build-essential";
APT::Default-Release "testing";
APT::Cache-Limit "100000000";
Dir "/";
Dir::State "var/lib/apt/";
Dir::State::lists "lists/";
Dir::State::cdroms "cdroms.list";
Dir::State::userstatus "status.user";
Dir::State::status "/var/lib/dpkg/status";
Dir::Cache "var/cache/apt/";
Dir::Cache::archives "archives/";
Dir::Cache::srcpkgcache "srcpkgcache.bin";
Dir::Cache::pkgcache "pkgcache.bin";
Dir::Etc "etc/apt/";
Dir::Etc::sourcelist "sources.list";
Dir::Etc::sourceparts "sources.list.d";
Dir::Etc::vendorlist "vendors.list";
Dir::Etc::vendorparts "vendors.list.d";
Dir::Etc::main "apt.conf";
Dir::Etc::parts "apt.conf.d";
Dir::Etc::preferences "preferences";
Dir::Bin "";
Dir::Bin::methods "/usr/lib/apt/methods";
Dir::Bin::dpkg "/usr/bin/dpkg";
DPkg "";
DPkg::Pre-Install-Pkgs "";
DPkg::Pre-Install-Pkgs:: "/usr/sbin/dpkg-preconfigure --apt || true";
DPkg::Post-Invoke "";
DPkg::Post-Invoke:: "if [ -x /usr/bin/debsums ]; then /usr/bin/debsums
--generate=nocheck -sp /var/cache/apt/archives; fi";
-- (no /etc/apt/preferences present) --
-- /etc/apt/sources.list --
# Custom sources.list, generated by rrsoftware-updates-client
# The original version was backed up to /etc/apt/sources.list.orig
deb http://172.30.166.63/debian/ stable main contrib non-free
deb http://172.30.166.63/debian/ testing main contrib non-free
deb http://172.30.166.63/debian/ unstable main contrib non-free
-- System Information:
Debian Release: testing/unstable
APT prefers testing
APT policy: (990, 'testing'), (500, 'unstable'), (500, 'stable')
Architecture: i386 (i686)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash
Kernel: Linux 2.4.22-1-686
Locale: LANG=C, LC_CTYPE=C (charmap=ANSI_X3.4-1968)
Versions of packages apt depends on:
ii libc6 2.3.6-13 GNU C Library: Shared libraries
ii libgcc1 1:4.1.0-4 GCC support library
ii libstdc++6 4.1.0-4 The GNU Standard C++ Library v3
Versions of packages apt recommends:
pn debian-archive-keyring <none> (no description available)
-- no debconf information
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