[Bug 1920836] Re: Show Extended Security Maintenence status

[Robert Ancell]

Confirmed here that /var/lib/ubuntu-advantage/status.json is only
updated when running 'ua status' as root.

No desktop software is running as root, in the few cases that root
privileges are required a small service is run as root and that is
communicated with via D-Bus.

The warning doesn't show for the majority of users, since they aren't
going to be running from the command line so I would leave it for now,
and remove in the next revision of this code.

I think there is a case where this won't work - if you have a fresh
machine that you haven't done a 'ua attach' on then software-properties
is going to not offer ESM as it's not going to think it's available.

In https://code.launchpad.net/~robert-ancell/software-
properties/+git/software-properties/+merge/400153 that 'ua status' can
timeout and return empty values, which is why we are accessing
/var/lib/ubuntu-advantage/status.json. Is there a reason why the ua
client doesn't do this itself internally, i.e. it gives you fresh json
or returns the cached copy if it can't do the update?

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1920836

Title:
  Show Extended Security Maintenence status

Status in software-properties package in Ubuntu:
  Fix Released
Status in software-properties source package in Xenial:
  New
Status in software-properties source package in Bionic:
  Fix Committed
Status in software-properties source package in Focal:
  Fix Committed
Status in software-properties source package in Hirsute:
  Fix Committed

Bug description:
  [Impact]
  There is not currently a graphical method of determining if a system is subscribed to [Extended Security Maintenance](https://ubuntu.com/security/esm) updates. This is resolved by adding some [new UI](https://wiki.ubuntu.com/SoftwareUpdates#Extended_Security_Maintenance) to the software properties application.

  [Test Case]
  1. Install latest version of Ubuntu advantage:
  $ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ua-client/stable
  $ sudo apt update
  $ sudo apt upgrade
  2. Open Software Properties
  3. Go to Updates tab.

  Expected result:
  Information is shown that indicates if this system is using Extended Security Maintenance updates, when updates will supported until, and a link to upgrade to ESM.

  Observed result:
  No ESM information currently shown.

  [Where problems could occur]
  - Software properties could hit a bug getting a response from the ua app. The current code carefully checks if and what is returned, falling back to a safe default behavior.
  - Launching software properties could trigger a bug in the ua app.
  - Software properties could show incorrect information, causing confusion for the user. The solution uses information from distro-info and the ua app which means software-properties contains no data about ESM, and instead relies on these apps that can be updated if things change.

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