[Bug 1701852] Re: (xenial+) apt-cache fails to run if a single sources.list.d entry is not readable

[Steve Langasek]

On Wed, Jul 05, 2017 at 04:05:43PM -0000, Julian Andres Klode wrote:
> Not really, we told everyone years ago to use the netrc for that.

Sorry, what is 'netrc'?  I've never heard of this, and while I'm not closely
involved in apt development, I don't find any reference to 'netrc' in the
apt.conf or sources.list manpages.  I manage to find
<https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/foundations-lucid-apt-netrc-mechanism>,
but Dir::Etc::netrc is not documented in apt-config(8) nor do I find
documentation for format.  This seems like a good enhancement to apt, but it
seems to be underdocumented and there are lots of downstream integration
points with sources.list which have never been updated to know about this?

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1701852

Title:
  (xenial+) apt-cache fails to run if a single sources.list.d entry is
  not readable

Status in apt package in Ubuntu:
  Triaged

Bug description:
  When evaluating:

  https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ubuntu-advantage-
  tools/+bug/1700611

  On 16.04 and greater, apt-cache fails to run if a single
  sources.list.d is not readable (by the current user).  On Trusty, the
  behavior was a bit more friendly in that it would run and just not
  show results from the file that cannot be read.

  My expectation is that when run it would warn if any .list file could
  not be read, but show results for everything it can see.

  This terminal interaction shows the problem (trusty and precise behave
  the same here):

  ubuntu at precise-esm:~$ ll /etc/apt/sources.list.d/staging-ubuntu-esm-precise.list
  -rw------- 1 root root 200 Jun 7 18:35 /etc/apt/sources.list.d/staging-ubuntu-esm-precise.list

  ubuntu at precise-esm:~$ apt-cache policy landscape-client
  landscape-client:
    Installed: (none)
    Candidate: 14.12-0ubuntu0.12.04
    Version table:
       14.12-0ubuntu0.12.04 0
          500 http://br.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise-updates/main amd64 Packages
          100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
       12.04.3-0ubuntu1 0
          500 http://br.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise/main amd64 Packages

  ubuntu at precise-esm:~$ sudo apt-cache policy landscape-client
  landscape-client:
    Installed: (none)
    Candidate: 14.12-0ubuntu5.12.04
    Version table:
       14.12-0ubuntu5.12.04 0
          500 https://extended.security.staging.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise/main amd64 Packages
       14.12-0ubuntu0.12.04 0
          500 http://br.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise-updates/main amd64 Packages
          100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
       12.04.3-0ubuntu1 0
          500 http://br.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise/main amd64 Packages

  ubuntu at xenial-test:~$ apt-cache search juju
  E: Opening /etc/apt/sources.list.d/juju-ubuntu-stable-xenial.list - ifstream::ifstream (13: Permission denied)
  E: The list of sources could not be read.
  ubuntu at xenial-test:~$

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