Bug#507175: Downgrade refused despite Pin-Piriority > 1000

[Marcin Owsiany <porridge@debian.org>]

Package: apt
Version: 0.6.46.4-0.1

Priority is set in preferences:

| root@sl1:~# grep -1 vzctl /etc/apt/preferences
| Package: vzctl
| Pin: version 3.0.23-1dso1~etch0~sl.1
| Pin-Priority: 1001

And apt-cache policy seems to recognize it:

| root@sl1:~# apt-cache policy vzctl
| vzctl:
|   Installed: 3.0.23-1dso1~etch0
|   Candidate: 3.0.23-1dso1~etch0~sl.1
|   Package pin: 3.0.23-1dso1~etch0~sl.1
|   Version table:
|  *** 3.0.23-1dso1~etch0 1001
|         500 http://debian.systs.org etch/openvz Packages
|         100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
|      3.0.23-1dso1~etch0~sl.1 1001
|         500 http://debian.softwarelab.eu etch-openvz/main Packages
|      3.0.11-14 1001
|         500 http://ftp.pl.debian.org etch/main Packages

However apt-get still refuses to downgrade without --force-yes

| root@sl1:~# /usr/bin/apt-get -q -y -o DPkg::Options::=--force-confold install vzctl
| Reading package lists...
| Building dependency tree...
| The following packages will be DOWNGRADED:
|   vzctl
| 0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 1 downgraded, 0 to remove and 2 not
| upgraded.
| Need to get 210kB of archives.
| After unpacking 160kB disk space will be freed.
| E: There are problems and -y was used without --force-yes

This makes package management using puppet somewhat difficult. The
apt-get command line above is what puppet's apt provider uses to install
the package's "newest" version. --force-yes is not on that line, and I'd
say that's correct. However right now automatic downgrades seem
impossible.

While it might be possible to change puppet to add --force-yes in such
situations, I don't think this would be a good idea. Changing this on
apt side seems like a much cleaner solution.

Any comments?

-- 
Marcin Owsiany <porridge@debian.org>             http://marcin.owsiany.pl/
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