[Bug 1962225] Re: preinst check that kernel revision < 255 now does more harm than good

[Edison Gustavo Muenz]

Are there any suggested workarounds in the meantime? This started
happening after the libc6-dev package (and its dependants: libc-dev-bin,
libc6) were upgraded from 2.31-0ubuntu9.2 to 2.31-0ubuntu9.7.

I'm running on AWS CodeBuild (so amd64 arch).

I tried installing the older version but it's not available. This is the
output of `rmadison libc6-dev`:

 libc6-dev | 2.19-0ubuntu6    | trusty          | amd64, arm64, armhf, i386, powerpc, ppc64el
 libc6-dev | 2.19-0ubuntu6.15 | trusty-security | amd64, arm64, armhf, i386, powerpc, ppc64el
 libc6-dev | 2.19-0ubuntu6.15 | trusty-updates  | amd64, arm64, armhf, i386, powerpc, ppc64el
 libc6-dev | 2.23-0ubuntu3    | xenial          | amd64, arm64, armhf, i386, powerpc, ppc64el, s390x
 libc6-dev | 2.23-0ubuntu11.3 | xenial-security | amd64, arm64, armhf, i386, powerpc, ppc64el, s390x
 libc6-dev | 2.23-0ubuntu11.3 | xenial-updates  | amd64, arm64, armhf, i386, powerpc, ppc64el, s390x
 libc6-dev | 2.27-3ubuntu1    | bionic          | amd64, arm64, armhf, i386, ppc64el, s390x
 libc6-dev | 2.27-3ubuntu1.5  | bionic-security | amd64, arm64, armhf, i386, ppc64el, s390x
 libc6-dev | 2.27-3ubuntu1.5  | bionic-updates  | amd64, arm64, armhf, i386, ppc64el, s390x
 libc6-dev | 2.31-0ubuntu9    | focal           | amd64, arm64, armhf, i386, ppc64el, riscv64, s390x
 libc6-dev | 2.31-0ubuntu9.4  | focal-proposed  | riscv64
 libc6-dev | 2.31-0ubuntu9.5  | focal-proposed  | amd64, arm64, armhf, i386, ppc64el, s390x
 libc6-dev | 2.31-0ubuntu9.7  | focal-security  | amd64, arm64, armhf, i386, ppc64el, riscv64, s390x
 libc6-dev | 2.31-0ubuntu9.7  | focal-updates   | amd64, arm64, armhf, i386, ppc64el, riscv64, s390x
 libc6-dev | 2.34-0ubuntu3    | impish          | amd64, arm64, armhf, i386, ppc64el, riscv64, s390x
 libc6-dev | 2.34-0ubuntu3.2  | impish-security | amd64, arm64, armhf, i386, ppc64el, riscv64, s390x
 libc6-dev | 2.34-0ubuntu3.2  | impish-updates  | amd64, arm64, armhf, i386, ppc64el, riscv64, s390x
 libc6-dev | 2.35-0ubuntu1    | jammy           | amd64, arm64, armhf, i386, ppc64el, riscv64, s390x

The 2.31-0ubuntu9 version has the same issue though.

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1962225

Title:
  preinst check that kernel revision < 255 now does more harm than good

Status in glibc package in Ubuntu:
  Confirmed
Status in glibc source package in Bionic:
  Confirmed
Status in glibc source package in Focal:
  In Progress

Bug description:
  [impact]
  Amazon Linux 2 currently has a kernel with version 4.14.262-200.489.amzn2.x86_64. This causes complaints from libc6's preinst that asserts that the "revision" part of the kernel version is less than 255.

  The significance of the check is much less than it used to be when the
  major part of the kernel version was stuck at 2, so we should follow
  Debian and just drop it.

  [test case]
  Boot an Amazon Linux 2 instance. Install docker. Run an ubuntu container of the series being tested. Run "apt-get update && apt-get install --reinstall libc6" and look for error messages / failures.

  [regression potential]
  It's possible that some binaries run using the "uname26" personality will fail -- but they will already fail with the glibc as currently installed, there's no value in preventing an upgrade.

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