Bug#1115854: unattended-upgrades^Wpython3-apt: creates /etc/apt/sources.list
retitle 1115854 python3-apt: creates /etc/apt/sources.list post-migration
reassign 1115854 python3-apt
found 1115854 3.0.0
thanks
>Considering that apt, as of a few weeks before the trixie release,
>has complained *LOUDLY* about the sources.list format (this seems
>to have quietened for the actual release), people are migrating to
>the deb822-sources format.
>
>However, the command “unattended-upgrade --download-only”, as run
>by /usr/lib/systemd/system/apt-daily.service, creates a sources.list
>file if deleted (i.e. the transition has finished). It should not
>do that.
>
>(I’ve not traced what precisely within it creates it, only traced
>this far with “sh -x”, as u-u is Python3 and thus harder to trace.)
I’ve now traced this down to just:
root@trixie:~# python3
Python 3.13.5 (main, Jun 25 2025, 18:55:22) [GCC 14.2.0] on linux
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> import apt
>>> apt.Cache(rootdir='/')
<apt.cache.Cache object at 0x7f00db201160>
This is sufficient to create an empty /etc/apt/sources.list which
causes Ansible to perpetually change things and which will cause
apt to, eventually, complain about its existence again.
>It also should not do that because this is basically overriding the
>local admin’s choice (recreating a conffile the admin deleted), and
>it’s annoying in ansible output when the latter is deleting the same
>file over and over again and people wonder what’s changed…
>
>Please fix this and bring the fix into a point release of trixie.
Thanks in advance,
//Thorsten
--
Thorsten Glaser
Linux / Unix Developer
Tel.: +49 160 91168501
E-Mail: tglaser@b1-systems.de
B1 Systems GmbH
Osterfeldstraße 7 / 85088 Vohburg / https://www.b1-systems.de/
GF: Ralph Dehner / Unternehmenssitz: Vohburg / AG: Ingolstadt, HRB 3537
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