[Bug 1667769] Re: apt-daily.service running too early in boot process

[Julian Andres Klode]

This was fixed in 1.4.2 (and the 1.3.? and 1.2.? SRUs) but I forgot to
mention the bug in the changelog. Aargh.

** Changed in: apt (Ubuntu)
       Status: Triaged => Fix Released

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Title:
  apt-daily.service running too early in boot process

Status in apt package in Ubuntu:
  Fix Released

Bug description:
  System: ubuntu mate 16.04 with apt version 1.2.19


  Problem:

  On a desktop system I noticed that the package lists were being
  updated very infrequently. This is apparently because on most days the
  apt-daily.service is triggered early in the boot process when the
  network is not up. Since the timer is set to run approximately every
  12 hours, and the system is only on for a few days, the timer tends to
  lapse over night and is then triggered as soon as the system is booted
  the following day.

  Also, `apt-get update` returns true regardless of whether there is a
  network connection, so the apt.systemd.daily script reports success
  and updates the timestamp file regardless. This means that if the
  system is only used for a few hours per day the package list may not
  be updated for many days until the timer lapses while the system
  happens to be already switched on.


  System journal showing typical output during boot process:

  Feb 10 14:38:13 desktop systemd[1]: Starting Daily apt activities...
  Feb 10 14:38:13 desktop apt.systemd.daily[3679]: verbose level 3
  ...
  [truncated]
  ...
  Feb 10 14:38:14 desktop apt.systemd.daily[3679]: + apt-get -y update
  Feb 10 14:38:14 desktop apt.systemd.daily[3679]: Err:1 http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial-security InRelease
  Feb 10 14:38:14 desktop apt.systemd.daily[3679]:   Temporary failure resolving 'security.ubuntu.com'
  Feb 10 14:38:14 desktop apt.systemd.daily[3679]: Err:2 http://ppa.launchpad.net/ubuntu-mate-dev/welcome/ubuntu xenial InRelease
  Feb 10 14:38:14 desktop apt.systemd.daily[3679]:   Temporary failure resolving 'ppa.launchpad.net'
  Feb 10 14:38:14 desktop apt.systemd.daily[3679]: Err:3 http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial InRelease
  Feb 10 14:38:14 desktop apt.systemd.daily[3679]:   Temporary failure resolving 'gb.archive.ubuntu.com'
  Feb 10 14:38:14 desktop apt.systemd.daily[3679]: Err:4 http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial-updates InRelease
  Feb 10 14:38:14 desktop apt.systemd.daily[3679]:   Temporary failure resolving 'gb.archive.ubuntu.com'
  Feb 10 14:38:14 desktop apt.systemd.daily[3679]: Err:5 http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial-backports InRelease
  Feb 10 14:38:14 desktop apt.systemd.daily[3679]:   Temporary failure resolving 'gb.archive.ubuntu.com'
  Feb 10 14:38:17 desktop apt.systemd.daily[3679]: Reading package lists...
  Feb 10 14:38:17 desktop apt.systemd.daily[3679]: W: Failed to fetch http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/xenial/InRelease  Temporary fa
  Feb 10 14:38:17 desktop apt.systemd.daily[3679]: W: Failed to fetch http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/xenial-updates/InRelease  Temp
  Feb 10 14:38:17 desktop apt.systemd.daily[3679]: W: Failed to fetch http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/xenial-backports/InRelease  Te
  Feb 10 14:38:17 desktop apt.systemd.daily[3679]: W: Failed to fetch http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/xenial-security/InRelease  Tempo
  Feb 10 14:38:17 desktop apt.systemd.daily[3679]: W: Failed to fetch http://ppa.launchpad.net/ubuntu-mate-dev/welcome/ubuntu/dists/xenial/InR
  Feb 10 14:38:17 desktop apt.systemd.daily[3679]: W: Some index files failed to download. They have been ignored, or old ones used instead.
  Feb 10 14:38:17 desktop apt.systemd.daily[3679]: + debug_echo download updated metadata (success).


  Work-around:

  I have worked around this by creating a file /etc/systemd/system/apt-
  daily.service.d/network.conf containing the following options:

  Wants=network-online.target
  After=network-online.target

  Maybe there is a better way to specify unit dependencies or to edit
  the timer so it will delay on startup, but this seems to fix the issue
  for me.


  Related bug:

  This other bug might be related, but it states that it causes apt-get to hang indefinitely, which I have not seen on my system.
  https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/apt/+bug/1636049

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