apt-proxy-users

[Apt-proxy-users] destructive(!) bug in apt-proxy-import

[Steven G. J. <st...@ab...>]

Hi, I am using apt-proxy 1.3.1 under Debian/stable (potato) on x86, and I
ran into what appears to be a serious bug in apt-proxy-import.  (It looks
like this utility hasn't been tested under potato; see below.)

First of all, it appears that apt-proxy-import deletes all of the .deb
files in the directory you point it to.  Is this the intended
behavior?  (It doesn't seem to be documented in the man page.)  I don't
think that such destructive behavior should be the default.

It wouldn't be so bad if it just moved the files, rather than deleting
them (although I still think it should only copy and not move), but it
appears there is a bug that causes this to fail.

In particular, I imported a directory full of .deb files, and it seems
that more than half of them were skipped (according to the
apt-proxy-import output), and I can no longer find the skipped .deb files
anywhere (neither in their original directory nor under
/var/cache/apt-proxy).

As a simple test case, I created a directory tst/ containing
ash_0.3.5-11_i386.deb, and the output was:

	root# apt-proxy-import --verbose tst
	tst: dpkg-name: can't find `-k'
	moved `ash_0.3.5-11_i386.deb' to `/var/cache/apt-proxy/dpkg-name.links/ash_0.3.5-11_i386.deb'
	skipped ash_0.3.5-11_i386.deb

Note the message about "-k"...the apt-proxy-import script is passing the
"-k" option to dpkg-name, but this option is apparently unsupported under
potato.  Also, it claims to be moving the .deb to
/var/cache/apt-proxy/dpkg-name.links/, but the dpkg-name.links
subdirectory is nonexistent.

Thanks for your help.

Cordially,
Steven G. Johnson

Re: [Apt-proxy-users] destructive(!) bug in apt-proxy-import

[Chris H. <chr...@gm...>]

Hi Steven,

On Sat, May 25, 2002 at 09:58:53PM -0400, Steven G. Johnson wrote:
> Hi, I am using apt-proxy 1.3.1 under Debian/stable (potato) on x86, and I
> ran into what appears to be a serious bug in apt-proxy-import.  (It looks
> like this utility hasn't been tested under potato; see below.)

You're right - I don't use Potato.  I've had a report from Thorsten Gunkel
about this, but I have not had the chance to try to reproduce it myself yet.

> First of all, it appears that apt-proxy-import deletes all of the .deb
> files in the directory you point it to.  Is this the intended
> behavior?  (It doesn't seem to be documented in the man page.)  I don't
> think that such destructive behavior should be the default.

No, the indended behaviour is to rename the .debs using dpkg-name, and to
avoid touching the original files, use the -k option to create symlinks in a
seperate directory (dpkg-name.links), and then to delete them afterwards.

> It wouldn't be so bad if it just moved the files, rather than deleting
> them (although I still think it should only copy and not move), but it
> appears there is a bug that causes this to fail.

Yes, it's not indended and is a bug.

> 	root# apt-proxy-import --verbose tst
> 	tst: dpkg-name: can't find `-k'
> 	moved `ash_0.3.5-11_i386.deb' to `/var/cache/apt-proxy/dpkg-name.links/ash_0.3.5-11_i386.deb'
> 	skipped ash_0.3.5-11_i386.deb
> 
> Note the message about "-k"...the apt-proxy-import script is passing the
> "-k" option to dpkg-name, but this option is apparently unsupported under
> potato.  

Hmm, I guess it won't work properly in that case.

> Also, it claims to be moving the .deb to
> /var/cache/apt-proxy/dpkg-name.links/, but the dpkg-name.links
> subdirectory is nonexistent.

That is very odd:  In apt-proxy-import, mkdir is run like this just before
dpkg-name is run:

  mkdir "$APT_PROXY_CACHE/dpkg-name.links/"

It must be because dpkg-name on Potato interprets the argument to the -k
option in a strange way:

    $DPKG_NAME -k -s "$APT_PROXY_CACHE/dpkg-name.links" "$directory"/*.deb \
        | line_feedback

I guess we should change the behaviour of apt-proxy-import for Potato.  I
was hoping Woody would have been released by now and I could avoid having to
install a Potato system to track this down :)

Chris
-- 
Chris Halls | Frankfurt, Germany