[Bug 2036195] Re: Any packages installed in binary hooks are marked as manually installed - even dependencies

[Launchpad Bug Tracker]

This bug was fixed in the package livecd-rootfs - 23.10.39

---------------
livecd-rootfs (23.10.39) mantic; urgency=medium

  * The chroot tmpfs mount should only be /var/lib/apt/lists, not
    /var/lib/apt; the latter breaks changes to /var/lib/apt/extended_states.
    LP: #2036195.

 -- Steve Langasek <steve.langasek at ubuntu.com>  Mon, 18 Sep 2023
15:06:23 -0700

** Changed in: livecd-rootfs (Ubuntu)
       Status: In Progress => Fix Released

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/2036195

Title:
  Any packages installed in binary hooks are marked as manually
  installed - even dependencies

Status in livecd-rootfs package in Ubuntu:
  Fix Released

Bug description:
  After much debugging trying to understand why `apt-get autoremove` was
  not working in a binary hook I realised that all packages installed in
  a binary hook are marked as manually installed - even the dependencies
  of packages. This is a bug.

  Another side affect of this is that any dependency of a package in the
  base chroot that is removed in a binary hook is not autoremovable in
  the binary hook.

  It is autoremovable once the image is created and launched though.

  This is due to how the `setup_mountpoint` function works (see
  https://git.launchpad.net/livecd-rootfs/tree/live-
  build/functions#n123) specifically

  ```
  mount -t tmpfs none "$mountpoint/var/lib/apt"
  ```

  Which means that inside the chroot that the binary hook works on, the
  `/var/lib/apt` directory is empty... including the
  `/var/lib/apt/extended_states` file which is used to store whether a
  package was auto installed or not.

  The same goes the other way - any changes to the
  `/var/lib/apt/extended_states`  file inside chroot that the binary
  hook is changing are not reflected in the final image due to the
  `teardown_mountpoint` (see https://git.launchpad.net/livecd-
  rootfs/tree/live-build/functions#n152) not persisting any of those
  changes.

  The end result being.

  * If a package is removed in the binary hook then the resulting image will likely have autoremovable packages at first launch
  * Any package and their dependencies installed in a binary hook will all be marked as manually installed.

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