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Belgian eID Packages on Debian Testing: Updates ignored

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luvr
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Location: Boom - The Home Town of Tomorrowland, Belgium

Belgian eID Packages on Debian Testing: Updates ignored

#1 Post by luvr »

I'm confused. :?

I'm running Debian Testing. My /etc/apt/sources.list file looks like this:

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deb       http://ftp.be.debian.org/debian/   testing             main contrib non-free
deb-src   http://ftp.be.debian.org/debian/   testing             main contrib non-free

deb       http://security.debian.org/        testing/updates     main contrib non-free
deb-src   http://security.debian.org/        testing/updates     main contrib non-free

deb       http://ftp.be.debian.org/debian/   testing-updates     main contrib non-free
deb-src   http://ftp.be.debian.org/debian/   testing-updates     main contrib non-free
I added the Belgian eID Software Packages to my system. Since packages for my Debian release are not directly available, I opted for the "candidate/sid" repository. My /etc/apt/sources.list.d/eid_belgium_be.list file has the following contents:

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deb       http://files.eid.belgium.be/debian   candidate/sid   main
deb-src   http://files.eid.belgium.be/debian   candidate/sid   main
The packages were successfully installed:

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Desired=Unknown/Install/Remove/Purge/Hold
| Status=Not/Inst/Conf-files/Unpacked/halF-conf/Half-inst/trig-aWait/Trig-pend
|/ Err?=(none)/Reinst-required (Status,Err: uppercase=bad)
||/ Name                       Version            Architecture       Description
+++-==========================-==================-==================-=========================================================
ii  beid-mozilla-extension     4.2.5v4.2.5.88.g47 all                Belgian Electronic Identity Card - Mozilla plugin
un  beidgui                    <none>             <none>             (no description available)
ii  eid-mw                     4.2.5v4.2.5.88.g47 amd64              low-level support for Belgian Electronic Identity Card
ii  eid-viewer                 4.2.5v4.2.5.88.g47 amd64              Graphical interface to Belgian Electronic Identity Card
ii  libbeidpkcs11-0:amd64      4.2.5v4.2.5.88.g47 amd64              PKCS#11 library for Belgian Electronic Identity Card
ii  libbeidpkcs11-bin          4.2.5v4.2.5.88.g47 amd64              helper programs for libbeidpkcs11-0
ii  libeidviewer0:amd64        4.2.5v4.2.5.88.g47 amd64              eid-viewer library
Currently, when I query the Properties of any of these packages from the Synaptic Package Manager, there appears to be an update available:

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Available versions:
4.2.5v4.2.5.103.ge5c900e-0sid1 (candidate)
4.2.5v4.2.5.88.g4798c05-0sid1 (now)
The apt-cache show command confirms this observation. Additionally, the currently installed versions are listed under "Installed (local or obsolete)" by the Synaptic Package Manager.
I, therefore, expect these packages to get upgraded when I install system updates. Instead, nothing happens:

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# apt-get update
Hit:1 http://ftp.be.debian.org/debian testing InRelease
Hit:2 http://files.eid.belgium.be/debian candidate/sid InRelease
Hit:3 http://security.debian.org testing/updates InRelease              
Hit:4 http://ftp.be.debian.org/debian testing-updates InRelease         
Reading package lists... Done                     
# apt-get dist-upgrade
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
Calculating upgrade... Done
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
I've been trying to determine why these updates won't install, but I cannot for the life of me, figure this out. I don't get any messages that the packages are held back, or that the updates cannot be installed for any reason. Does anyone have any idea how I can further diagnose this issue?

Dai_trying
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Re: Belgian eID Packages on Debian Testing: Updates ignored

#2 Post by Dai_trying »

The only thing I can think of would be the update is on a lower "pin" level and would not be upgraded. I have read in the past that sid packages are pinned lower than others and must be specifically installed (or I could be confusing backports...) but the output of apt-cache policy for one of the apparently upgradeable packages would be more helpful as it would show pin levels and location of available packages.

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stevepusser
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Re: Belgian eID Packages on Debian Testing: Updates ignored

#3 Post by stevepusser »

The repository priority is the only thing that springs to my mind, too.

You can force Synaptic to install a specific version, but I just use the command line because I think it works better:

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aptitude install package=version
and I get the version from "apt-cache policy"
MX Linux packager and developer

luvr
Posts: 85
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Location: Boom - The Home Town of Tomorrowland, Belgium

Re: Belgian eID Packages on Debian Testing: Updates ignored

#4 Post by luvr »

Dai_trying wrote:the output of apt-cache policy for one of the apparently upgradeable packages would be more helpful
Interesting... I'm only just beginning to learn about "pin" levels and such.
In any case, here's the output of the apt-cache policy command for one of the packages:

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beid-mozilla-extension:
  Installed: 4.2.5v4.2.5.88.g4798c05-0sid1
  Candidate: 4.2.5v4.2.5.88.g4798c05-0sid1
  Version table:
     4.2.5v4.2.5.103.ge5c900e-0sid1 1
          1 http://files.eid.belgium.be/debian candidate/sid/main amd64 Packages
 *** 4.2.5v4.2.5.88.g4798c05-0sid1 100
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
Thus, if my understanding is correct, then the new package version has priority 1, while the currently installed one has priority 100?
Without any further arguments, apt-cache policy displays the following:

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Package files:
 100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
     release a=now
   1 http://files.eid.belgium.be/debian candidate/sid/main amd64 Packages
     release o=FedICT,a=candidate,n=candidate,l=FedICT,c=main,b=amd64
     origin files.eid.belgium.be
 500 http://security.debian.org testing/updates/non-free amd64 Packages
     release o=Debian,a=testing,n=stretch,l=Debian-Security,c=non-free,b=amd64
     origin security.debian.org
 500 http://security.debian.org testing/updates/main amd64 Packages
     release o=Debian,a=testing,n=stretch,l=Debian-Security,c=main,b=amd64
     origin security.debian.org
 500 http://ftp.be.debian.org/debian testing/non-free amd64 Packages
     release o=Debian,a=testing,n=stretch,l=Debian,c=non-free,b=amd64
     origin ftp.be.debian.org
 500 http://ftp.be.debian.org/debian testing/contrib amd64 Packages
     release o=Debian,a=testing,n=stretch,l=Debian,c=contrib,b=amd64
     origin ftp.be.debian.org
 500 http://ftp.be.debian.org/debian testing/main amd64 Packages
     release o=Debian,a=testing,n=stretch,l=Debian,c=main,b=amd64
     origin ftp.be.debian.org
Pinned packages:
I haven't done anything to customise priority levels, so they must be set to whatever are the "default" values. Is there any reason, then, why the "eid.belgium.be" repository is assigned a priority of 1?

Dai_trying
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Re: Belgian eID Packages on Debian Testing: Updates ignored

#5 Post by Dai_trying »

Yes it looks like the priority level is giving you the issue, you can simply follow stevepusser's advice to install using the version number, or you can set a higher priority in /etc/apt/preferences or it might be a file in /etc/apt/preferences.d/ (not sure exactly as I'm in a different OS at the moment).

luvr
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Re: Belgian eID Packages on Debian Testing: Updates ignored

#6 Post by luvr »

stevepusser wrote:You can force Synaptic to install a specific version, but I just use the command line because I think it works better:

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aptitude install package=version
and I get the version from "apt-cache policy"
Thanks! I prefer the command line, too, so I'm always interested in such information.
I'll give this command a try, and see what happens.

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Re: Belgian eID Packages on Debian Testing: Updates ignored

#7 Post by Dai_trying »

And you might find this debian wiki page of interest. :)

luvr
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Location: Boom - The Home Town of Tomorrowland, Belgium

Re: Belgian eID Packages on Debian Testing: Updates ignored

#8 Post by luvr »

Dai_trying wrote:And you might find this debian wiki page of interest. :)
Thanks for the link... It eventually sent me to Debian Package Management - Tweaking candidate version, which has a handy table of "notable Pin-Priority values for apt-pinning technique". It says that a Pin-Priority of 1 is "used as the default for the NotAutomatic archive." Therefore, I concluded that the Belgian eID repository that I'm using must somehow be considered "NotAutomatic".

In the end, I went looking for the Release file of the repository, and lo and behold, ... it has a "NotAutomatic: yes" line:

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Origin: FedICT
Label: FedICT
Suite: candidate
Codename: candidate
Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2017 13:31:18 UTC
Architectures: amd64 i386 armhf
Components: sid/main
Description: FedICT eID packages for Debian Sid - unsupported development builds
NotAutomatic: yes
One more mystery solved!

Obviously, there's a whole lot more to this pinning stuff, and how it affects Debian package management, than I realised.
Will have to do some more studying to grasp the subject...

luvr
Posts: 85
Joined: 2016-07-21 19:39
Location: Boom - The Home Town of Tomorrowland, Belgium

Re: Belgian eID Packages on Debian Testing: Updates ignored

#9 Post by luvr »

Dai_trying wrote:Yes it looks like the priority level is giving you the issue, you can simply follow stevepusser's advice to install using the version number, or you can set a higher priority in /etc/apt/preferences or it might be a file in /etc/apt/preferences.d/ (not sure exactly as I'm in a different OS at the moment).
Here's what I ended up doing:
  • I installed the packages with the specific version number. Looked kind of ugly on the command line, with all of these "package=4.2.5v4.2.5.88.g4798c05-0sid1" parameters, but it worked.
  • Given that, in the future, I would much rather have such updates installed automatically, without further intervention on my part, whenever I install system updates, I went looking for more information on the preferences files, to see how I could set the priority of the Belgian eID repository to an appropriate value.
I eventually created a /etc/apt/preferences.d/eid_belgium_be.pref file with the following contents:

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Package: *
Pin: release o=FedICT, a=candidate, n=candidate, l=FedICT, c=main
Pin-Priority: 100
The apt-cache policy command now has the following to say:

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Package files:
 100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
     release a=now
 100 http://files.eid.belgium.be/debian candidate/sid/main amd64 Packages
     release o=FedICT,a=candidate,n=candidate,l=FedICT,c=main,b=amd64
     origin files.eid.belgium.be
 500 http://ftp.be.debian.org/debian testing/non-free amd64 Packages
     release o=Debian,a=testing,n=buster,l=Debian,c=non-free,b=amd64
     origin ftp.be.debian.org
 500 http://ftp.be.debian.org/debian testing/contrib amd64 Packages
     release o=Debian,a=testing,n=buster,l=Debian,c=contrib,b=amd64
     origin ftp.be.debian.org
 500 http://ftp.be.debian.org/debian testing/main amd64 Packages
     release o=Debian,a=testing,n=buster,l=Debian,c=main,b=amd64
     origin ftp.be.debian.org
Pinned packages:
So, the way I understand it, the package versions from the Belgian eID repository will now have the same priority as the currently installed ones. Thus, when the repository has updates available to the packages, these newer versions should get selected for installation.

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Re: Belgian eID Packages on Debian Testing: Updates ignored

#10 Post by Dai_trying »

As I understand it the same way as you I think it should work as you described, although if it does not offer you the updates than I would change the priority to the same as the standard repositories (500) but only if it doesn't work as expected.

emariz
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Re: Belgian eID Packages on Debian Testing: Updates ignored

#11 Post by emariz »

luvr wrote:In the end, I went looking for the Release file of the repository, and lo and behold, ... it has a "NotAutomatic: yes"
Then the maintainers decided to assign the repository a priority of 1, like that of Experimental, instead of 100 (to allow upgrades) via the 'ButAutomaticUpgrades' flag, like that of Backports. And the maintainers are the most qualified to tell you why they chose one priority over the other.

From a purely procedural perspective, the maintainers ask the user to double-check the installation and upgrade of the packages from their repository, hence the need to authorise every installation.

Read man apt_preferences

luvr
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Re: Belgian eID Packages on Debian Testing: Updates ignored

#12 Post by luvr »

emariz wrote:
luvr wrote:Then the maintainers decided to assign the repository a priority of 1, like that of Experimental, instead of 100 (to allow upgrades) via the 'ButAutomaticUpgrades' flag, like that of Backports. And the maintainers are the most qualified to tell you why they chose one priority over the other.

From a purely procedural perspective, the maintainers ask the user to double-check the installation and upgrade of the packages from their repository, hence the need to authorise every installation.

Read man apt_preferences
OK, thanks. As far as my setup is concerned, though, it feels somewhat overcautious to have to double-check each update before applying it. I mean, I'm running Debian testing to begin with, so I'm aware that not everything may work perfectly at all times.

Furthermore, I'm tracking candidate/sid of this particular repository, which feels exactly like Debian testing to me--more so since the repository also has a continuous area, which seems to fit the description of what Debian calls experimental quite nicely.

And finally, the developers themselves explicitly state that candidate/sid should be "relatively safe" anyway, and I made up my mind that I can live with that "relativity" (else I wouldn't be running Debian testing in the first place).

So, as with everything on testing, I'll accept the possibility that something may break at any time without notice (usually at the most inconvenient times, of course...), and I'll happily apply updates from the repository.

luvr
Posts: 85
Joined: 2016-07-21 19:39
Location: Boom - The Home Town of Tomorrowland, Belgium

Re: Belgian eID Packages on Debian Testing: Updates ignored

#13 Post by luvr »

Just for the record: I have just received updates to the Belgian eID Packages, and they got automatically installed along with the other system updates. The packages are now at version 4.2.8v4.2.8.47.g3098325-0sid1, as expected.

Problem solved!

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